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GREAT    VICTORIANS 


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GREAT  VICTORIANS 

MEMORIES    AND    PERSONALITIES 


BY 


T.    H.   S.   ^SCOTT 

AUTHOR  OF 

•THE  STORY  OF  BRITISH   DIPLOMACY,' 

'CLUB  MAKERS   AND    CLUB    MEMBERS,' 

ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

597-599  FIFTH  AVENUE 
1916 


/ 


/ 


E7-5 


PHEUN 


[All  rights  reserved) 

PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


». 

^ 
^ 


MY  BROTHER, 

THE   REVEREND   E.   HERBERT   S.   ESCOTT, 

The  head  of  my  family,  as  the  possessor  of 
Hartrow  Manor,  round  which  and  its  neigh- 
bourhood many  of  the  persons  or  incidents 
recalled  in  the  following  pages  naturally  group 
themselves,  with  all  appreciation  of  his  public 
services,  at  Dulwich  College  and  elsewhere, 
to   the  education   and   culture   of  his  time, 

THIS     VOLUME     IS      AFFECTIONATELY     INSCRIBED, 

WITH    ALL    GOOD    WISHES, 

BY   ITS   AUTHOR, 

T.    H.    S.    ESCOTT. 


774409 


PREFACE 

Kamily  accidents  or  personal  chances  brought 
me,  from  a  very  early  age,  into  the  presence 
of  celebrated  or  interesting  personages,  in  most 
cases  more  or  less  connected  with  my  native 
West  of  England.  In  less  immature  life,  em- 
ployments and  associations  added  extension  or 
intimacy  to  this  kind  of  acquaintanceship,  giving 
me  a  knowledge  that  was  at  least  first-hand  of 
not  a  few  among  the  most  characteristic  as  well 
as  often  entertaining  products  of  their  time. 

In  cases  like  Bishop  Phillpotts  and  the  first 
Duke  of  Wellington,  a  tolerably  good  memory 
brought  before  me,  as  clearly  as  if  I  had  seen 
them  yesterday,  much  that  was  most  impressive 
in  their  appearance,  their  manner,  and  the 
**  habit  in  which  they  lived."  For  their  distinc- 
tive attributes  of  various  kinds,  manifested  in 
the  parts  they  played  and  the  principles  for  which 
they  stood,  I  have  been  fortunate  in  being  able 
to  draw  upon  their  contemporaries  or  their  rela- 
tives, who  had  the  authentic  tradition  concerning 

7 


Preface 

them.  Such,  as  regards  the  Duke,  were  his  son, 
the  second  Duke,  and  his  most  intimate  and  life- 
long friend,  the  Rev.  G.  R.  Gleig,  so  long  the 
Army  Chaplain -General.  In  the  case  of  the 
Bishop,  I  have  been  similarly  helped  by  his 
grandson,  son  of  the  Archdeacon  of  Cornwall, 
James  Surtees  Phillpotts,  formerly  a  Rugby 
master,  and  headmaster  of  Bedford,  now  living 
at  Tunbridge  Wells,  by  my  old  college  friend, 
the  Rev.  A.  L.  Eoulkes,  long  a  clergyman  in 
the  Exeter  Diocese,  and  by  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse, 
whose  invaluable  kindness  refreshed  a  dim 
recollection  of  the  Bishop  as,  during  his  last 
years,  he  could  be  seen  in  his  retirement  at 
Torquay.  As  a  child  I  had  first  seen  the  Bishop 
with  or  at  the  house  of  my  relative,  Samuel 
Trehawke  Kekewich,  of  "  Peamore  "  ;  his  late 
son  was  good  enough  to  check  and  supplement 
my  own  memories,  as  well  as  from  his  own 
experience  to  describe  the  Bishop's  oratorical 
methods  and  effects  on  platforms  or  in 
Parliament,  and  their  curious  resemblance  to 
his  private  conversation  at  dinner -tables  and 
in  drawing-rooms.  The  Bishop's  alliance  with 
Lord  Derby  against  the  Coalition  Government 
of  1853,  and  the  remarkable  bitterness  of  his 
invective,  first  placed  him  high  among  the 
chief   debaters  on  the   Conservative  side  in  the 

8 


Preface 

Upper  House.  The  second  Earl  Granville  was 
one  of  the  few  peers  belonging  to  that  Adminis- 
tration who  lived  into  my  time.  To  him  I  was 
indebted  for  singularly  lifelike  accounts  of  the 
Bishop's  performances.  Indeed^  without  Lord 
Granville's  help,  what  has  been  said  as  to  the 
impression  left  by  the  Bishop  on  his  immediate 
contemporaries  would  have  been  less  distinct  and 
fresh  than  I  hope  is  now  the  case. 

As  regards  many  other  details^  the  intimacy 
enjoyed  by  me  from  my  earliest  youth  with 
A.  W.  Kinglake,  Abraham  Hay  ward,  and  others 
brought  back  to  me,  long  before  I  had  any  idea 
of  writing  these  pages,  many  types  of  their  time 
with  whom  personal  acquaintance  on  my  part 
would  have  been  impossible,  but  whose  omis- 
sion from  a  book  bearing  the  present  title  must 
have  rendered  it  grievously  incomplete.  Einally, 
while  I  have  not  consciously  drawn  upon  any 
memoirs,  autobiographies,  or  diaries  recently 
published,  I  would  gratefully  acknowledge  the 
valuable  and  interesting  private  letters  in  which 
Sir  Donald  Stewart's  daughter.  Lady  Eustace, 
has  revived  and  enlarged  my  recollection,  not 
only  of  her  distinguished  father,  but  of  the  other 
Anglo -Indian  generals  of  his  day. 

T.   H.   S.    ESCOTT. 

West  Brighton, 

December  191 5. 

9 


CONTENTS 

PA6B 
PREFACE  .......        7 

CHAPTER  I 
MITRE   AND   BATON    .  .  .  .  .  -      ^3 

A  memorable  confirmation  address  in  the  old  church,  Bideford — 
Henry  of  Exeter's  watchword  for  the  newly  confirmed,  *'  Incor- 
porate "  into  the  Body  of  Christ,  the  Church — The  skull-cap  and 
episcopal  robes  in  the  religious  light — Wizard  or  priest?— An 
address  that  reaffirms  all  those  doctrines  whose  repudiation  by  the 
Brampford  Speke  clergyman,  and  whose  disregard  by  the  Primate, 
Dr.  Howley,  had  brought  about  Henry's  long  war  against  the  Gorham 
heresies  and  his  excommunication  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury— Indifference  of  his  diocese  to  these  escapades  and  local  pride — 
His  intrepidity  as  the  champion  of  the  reaction  to  clerical  mediseval- 
ism  and  the  subordination  of  State  to  Church — Bishop  Phillpotts' 
position,  social  and  political,  as  a  type  and  leader  of  that  move- 
ment— His  gradual  preparation  for  it,  first  as  Tory  High  Church 
pamphleteer,  d.  la  Jonathan  Swift — Society  success  began  when  he 
became  Dean  of  Chester — Famous  hosts  and  guests  in  and  out  of 
London — Diocesan  work  and  social  progresses  in  Devonshire — The 
right-hand  man.  Archdeacon  Freeman,  more  advanced  and  uncom- 
promising than  the  Bishop  himself — The  leavening  of  the  West 
with  anti- Reformation  principles  by  Mr.  Prynne  at  St.  Mary's, 
Plymouth — The  devotee  who  not  only  brushed  the  church  floor 
but  licked  it  with  her  tongue  thoroughly  to  clean  it,  and  made 
the  Bishop  smack  his  lips  with  delight — Social  discourses  on  Dr. 
Johnson's  text  about  the  devil  as  the  first  Whig — At  daggers  drawn 
with  Jeffrey,  Brougham,  and  all  concerned  with  the  Edinburgh 
Review — A  Bishop  after  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  own  heart — At 
Buckingham  Palace  with  the  Duke  as  Oxford  Chancellor  to  con- 
gratulate Queen  Victoria  on  her  marriage — A  little  dialogue  on 
punctuality  as  the  politeness  of  princes — The  Bishop  before  the 
looking-glass  at  his  palace — The  episcopal  sugar-plums  and  picture- 

II 


Contents 

PAOK 

books — The  Bishop  and  the  hunting  parsons — The  Bishop's  gracious 
way  with  an  Evangelical  clergyman  about  the  "  Shebbear  rogues  " 
— Henry  of  Exeter's  table-talk  as  the  rehearsal  of  his  speeches  in 
Parliament — The  Bishop  and  Lord  Derby  understand  each  other 
about  the  Canada  Clergy  Reserves  Bill — Landor's  "  Belial  Bishop" 
— Henry  stands  for  damnation,  not  condemnation — The  gamecock 
of  the  aristocratic  Tories — The  house  party  at  Mount  Edgcumbe 
and  what  came  of  it — The  conqueror  of  Waterloo  and  Henry  of 
Exeter  meet — The  Bishop  lionizes  the  Duke  over  Exeter  Cathedral 
— The  Duke's  account  of  it  given  to  the  Rev.  G.  R.  Gleig — The 
dark  and  fearful  face  in  the  bath-chair — Henry  of  Exeter's  doctrines 
and  influence  carried  into  Somerset  by  the  Rev.  M.  F.  Sadler  of 
Bridgwater,  who  exercised  on  Archdeacon  Denison  something  of  the 
same  influence  as  Archdeacon  Freeman  exercised  on  Bishop  Phillpotts 
— The  Archdeacon's  brother,  the  Speaker,  on  "  St.  George  without 
the  drag-on  " — The  Archdeacon's  own  account  of  his  conversion 
to  Ritualism — The  Vicar  of  East  Brent  and  the  school  inspector — 
The  latter  welcomed  with  "  Old  Daddy  Longlegs  wouldn't  say  his 
prayers  " — The  first  Duke  of  Wellington  as  a  West  of  England 
worthy — Restoration  of  the  Wellington  pillar  on  the  Blackdown 
Hills — The  Duke's  West  of  England  and  other  progresses — The 
Duke  at  Kilve  Court,  Hartrow  Manor,  and  Hatfield — The  Duke  as 
I  remember  him  in  the  West — His  grace's  short  way  with  black- 
mailers and  other  people's  duns — The  second  Duke's  likeness  and 
unlikeness  to  his  father — The  same  short,  sharp,  sententious  manner 
of  speech  and  of  dealing  with  his  fellow-men — How  not  to  become 
a  coroner — Sir  Henry  Irving's  train  from  Strathfieldsaye — A  danger- 
ously good  memory  for  exposing  the  plagiarisms  in  travellers'  tales 
and  the  inconsistencies  of  fiction-mongers  about  their  famous  friends, 
e.g.  the  Cumbrays  and  the  recipient  of  Bismarck's  stolen  goods  from 
Gambetta — The  Duke,  George  IV,  and  the  cavalry  of  various 
nations — The  Duke  as  an  art  patron  :  ' '  Not  going  to  let  Coutts' 
people  know  what  a  fool  I  have  been  " — How  the  Duke  raised  a 
Paris  monument  in  H.B.M.  Embassy,  29  Faubourg  St.  Honore — 
The  Duke,  Lady  Catherine  Pakenham,  and  the  young  physician. 


CHAPTER  n 

FROM   WELLINGTON   TO   WOLSELEY  .  .  .  '91 

A  Lemon  Street  statue  for  Lord  Raglan  as  a  Truro  ex-M.P. — Fitzroy 
Somerset  acts  "  Ulysses  "  on  the  Latin  play  stage  at  Westminster 
School— Grinds  at  Spanish  with  the  future  Duke  of  Wellington  on 
the  voyage  out  to  the  Peninsula — By  marriage  with  Lady  Harriet 
Wellesley  becomes  the  Duke's  nephew-in-law — During  the  peace 

12 


Contents 

interval  of  1814  Secretary  of  the  Duke's  Paris  Embassy— House 
of  Commons  days — Military  promotion  and  created  Lord  Raglan 
in  1852  With  the  Badminton  foxhounds  and  in  the  Savernake 
game  coverts — As  aide  de-camp  at  Waterloo  loses  his  arm,  but 
will  not  lose  the  ring  which  is  a  present  from  his  wife — After  the 
Crimea,  Cardigan  and  his  colonels  on  the  King's  Road,  Brighton — 
Aristocrat  and  hussar — The  old  patrician  regime  personified — 
Much  virtue  in  the  lash — The  soldiers  starving  and  the  General  in 
a  floating  palace — Alvanley  and  Cardigan  in  the  shires— Assheton 
Smith  and  Cardigan  ride  against  each  other  with  the  hounds  till 
their  horses  nearly  drop — The  trooper  and  the  dying  Colonel :  "All 
safe  for  heaven  !  " — Gradual  appearance  of  new  and  better  military 
types — Sir  William  Knollys,  the  founder  of  the  Aldershot  camp — 
Indian  soldiers  as  English  teachers — Lord  Lawrence  of  the  Punjab 
— Chairman  of  the  London  School  Board  —  John  and  Henry's 
respective  epitaphs — Comparison  between  the  two  brothers — Lord 
Hardinge  and  the  Lawrences — Governor-General  of  India — The 
Sikh  wars — Lough  Cutra  Castle — St.  Helen's,  Dublin — "  Paddy 
Gough  " — Chillianwallah — Hardinge's  gallantry  in  the  Peninsula — 
"What,  tents,  and  chairs  inside  them  ! " — Mrs.  Disraeli's  luck  in  her 
nocturnal  neighbours — At  daggers  drawn  with  the  Duke  of  New- 
castle and  the  Cabinet  during  the  Crimean  War — Dies  at  Tunbridge 
Wells  in  1856 — Outram,  the  "Bayard  of  India" — Sir  Colin 
Campbell,  afterwards  Lord  Clyde,  of  Crimean  and  Indian  fame — 
His  delight  with  the  House  of  Lords,  with  all  he  sees  in  town  or 
country — Romps  with  children  in  the  hayfield — Sir  Donald  Stewart 
as  he  looked  and  walked  in  Kensington  Gardens — A  typical  High- 
lander with  Norse  strain  in  blood  and  features — Return  to  India — 
Commander-in-Chief  in  India — A  Councillor  at  the  India  Office — 
His  character  summed  up  by  Lord  Bryce — A  keen  sportsman — 
Picturesque  figure  and  surroundings  at  Chelsea  Hospital — His 
opinion  of  the  British  soldier — Sir  Louis  Mallet — His  Board  of 
Trade  work — Appointment  to  the  under-secretaryship  in  1874 — 
Grandson  of  Mallet  du  Pan,  the  French  publicist  and  Revolution 
refugee — Comes  to  represent  Cobdenism  at  the  India  Office — Free 
Trader,  economist,  and  cosmopolitan  conversationist — How  he 
saw  a  great  Duke  fall  downstairs  at  a  Paris  cafe  and  helped  to  pick 
him  up  dead — Sir  Henry  Norman — Norman  as  soldier  and  pupil 
in  the  Lawrence  school — The  might-have-been  Viceroy  of  1892 — His 
last  promotion  to  the  Chelsea  Hospital  governorship — Anglo-Indian 
preparation  for  the  improved  officer  of  the  nineteenth-  and  twentieth- 
century  type — Roberts  and  Salisbury  afloat — A  glass  of  cold  water  : 
*'  Thy  necessity  is  greater  than  mine  " — Some  points  in  common 
between  Roberts  and  Wolseley — Sir  George  Hamley,  the  Wolseley 
type ;  the  new  Army  and  the  results — Henry  Brackenbury  as  a 
type  and  worker — Sir  Evelyn  Wood  and  Sir  Coleridge  Grove,  the 
only  two  survivors  of  the  Wolseley   school — Sword,  pen,  and  Sir 

13 


PAOK 


Contents 

PAGE 

Evelyn  Wood — War  correspondent  types  from  Xenophon  to  John 
and  Henry  Hozier — The  three  brothers  :  Sir  William,  Charles,  and 
Keith  Fraser — Brackenbury's  diary  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War — 
Solving  the  mystery  of  Bazaine's  movements — Hamber  and  Bracken- 
bury's proof — The  "  hit  "  of  to-morrow — The  fifteenth-century  Sir 
Robert  Brackenbury — Sir  John  Pender's  steam  yacht  Electra — 
Mowbray's  "  Est  in  conspectu  Tenedos" — The  value  of  Wolseley's 
association  with  Brackenbury — The  latter's  articles  on  military 
reform — Office  of  Commander-in-Chief  abolished — Bismarck's  desire 
to  interview  Wolseley — Sir  Charles  Dilke  given  Bismarck's  opinion 
of  Lord  Wolseley  by  the  German  statesman  himself— At  Cranbrook, 
Mr.  Pandeli  Ralli's  Surrey  country  house— '"Spects  I  growed  " — 
The  officer  who  had  nothing  to  wear — Albert  Smith's  gent — 
Cremorne  Gardens — Altercations  with  the  cabmen — Sir  Vincent 
Caillard,  the  one  survivor  of  the  officers  trained  by  Wolseley's 
ablest  deputy — The  Duke  of  Connaught's  request — Queen  Victoria's 
pleasure — Allan  Thorndike  Rice  and  Von  Moltke — The  Prussian 
soldier  a  subject  of  conversation — Lady  Wolseley  and  Madame 
Gallifet  the  best  dressed  women  in  Europe — Wolseley's  short  ten 
minutes'  sleep  before  the  battle  of  Tel-el-Kebir — Lord  Spencer  and 
the  sleepy  Prime  Minister — Wellington  flirts  with  Madame  Quintana 
just  before  the  battle  of  Orthes,  where  the  Duke  was  slightly  injured 
— The  Duke  has  a  short  repose  before  the  battle  of  St.  Sebastian — 
Lord  Kitchener's  preference  for  gold  and  silver  tea-services  to 
swords  of  honour. 


CHAPTER  III 

AMBASSADORS  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  ,  .  -154 

School  examining  at  Tunbridge  Wells — The  young  ladies  playing 
croquet — The  gentleman  on  the  garden  bench — The  great  "  Eltchi " 
as  seen  in  the  lobby  of  the  House — Debate  on  the  Quadruple 
Alliance — His  only  speech,  as  he  said,  in  the  House — Crimean  War 
caused  not  by  blundering  and  ignorant  miscalculation,  but  by  the 
great  ideas  and  passions  long  in  the  air — Russia  as  the  tyrant  of 
national  liberty  under  Nicholas  I  :  "  A  cat  whom  no  one  cares  to 
bell  " — Stratford  Canning's  rise  and  progress — Diplomacy  no  longer 
a  close  borough — George  Canning's  cousin  and  precis-writer,  but  no 
friends  at  Court — A  son  of  the  commercial  classes — At  Eton,  not  as 
an  oppidan  but  a  **  tug  " — Roughing  it  in  the  *'  Long  Chamber  " — 
Captain  of  the  school — Gets  King's,  makes  many  famous  friends, 
but  owes  more  to  home  lessons  than  to  any  of  these — Not  a  persona 
grata  to  the  Czar,  but  Sultan  against  Sultan  at  Constantinople — 
The  terror  of  the  Turk  and  of  his  own  attaches — Granville  Murray 

14 


Contents 

PAOB 

rebels— Caricatures  his  chief  in  Sir  Hector  Stubble— The  great 
**  Eltchi "  returns  to  London — Is  the  diplomatic  oracle  of  Parlia- 
ment—Retires to  Tunbridge  Wells — Intellectual  and  busy  to  the 
last — Place  in  social  and  political  nineteenth-century  development — 
The  great  "Eltchi's"  great  predecessor,  and  those  who  have 
since  filled  his  place  at  Constantinople — Sir  William  White  and 
others. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PALMERSTONIANA       ......    I76 

The  Parliamentary  contest  at  Tiverton — "  Cupid  "  on  the  Tiverton 
hustings — A  bit  of  Butcher  Rowcliffe's  mind — •*  No  chaff!  " — The 
accustomed  irony  of  Socrates  matched  by  the  habitual  banter  of 
Palmerston — A  visit  to  the  Prime  Minister  in  Downing  Street — 
What  he  looked  and  said — Repeated  constitutionals  from  the  standing 
desk  to  the  inkpot  and  writing-table — His  narrative  of  the  family 
history  of  the  movements  ending  in  putting  down  "  hells" — Cosmos 
out  of  chaos  on  the  writing-table — Lady  Palmerston's  invitation 
cards — The  "  basket  trick" — "Next  man  in" — "Bless  my  soul, 
how  very  singular  ! " — "I  hope  you're  better" — Man  of  that  age 
sure  to  have  been  out  of  sorts — Palmerston  and  the  Morning  Post 
— George  Smythe's  prediction  about  the  Tory  Party — Too  busy  to 
read  the  papers — His  Tory  days — Disgrace  at  Court — Sir  Henry 
Bulwer's  coaching  in  foreign  politics  and  its  result — Palmerston  with 
those  about  him  in  Paris,  and  the  pocket-handkerchief  which  won't 
fall  out—"  Big  Ben's  "  two  faces— "Janus"  or  "  Palmerston"  ?— 
Palmerston  as  sketched  by  Disraeli  in  1836 — His  treatment  of 
Talleyrand  and  its  political  consequence — The  diplomatist  in  the 
Cambridge  House  drawing-room,  "  How  like  his  father  !  " — Things 
one  would  rather  not  have  said — The  legendary  bottle  of  brown 
sherry  a  day — The  historical  Amontillado — The  hard  names 
that  break  no  bones  but  make  enemies — "  An  absolute  and  Absolutist 
fool" — "  The  next  thing  to  an  idiot" — The  elderly  gallant  in  the 
boudoir — *'  I  think  it  most  gentlemanly  " — The  Schleswig-Holstein 
question  understood  by  three  persons  only — Lady  Palmerston's 
smacking  kiss  in  the  lobby — Pam  and  the  Duke — Pam  on  Queen 
Victoria  and  the  Duchess  of  Kent — How  foreign  statesmen  cooled 
their  heels  in  Palmerston's  waiting-room — What  they  thought  and 
said  of  it — How  to  deal  with  Austrian  outrages  and  to  enforce 
English  rights  in  Brazilian  waters — The  cost  of  a  hatless  walk  on 
Brocket  Terrace — The  ruling  passion  strong  in  death — "That's 
article  ninety-eight  j  now  go  on  to  the  next." 

15 


Contents 


CHAPTER  V 

PAGB 

ARCADES   AMBO"       ......    200 

Palmerston  on  the  Turf — The  Palmerstonian  pattern  in  men  and 
dress  exemplified  by  W.  McCuUagh  Torrens  in  his  appearance, 
manner,  stories  (the  whisky  and  the  Cabinet),  and  by  Charles 
Skirrow — Other  early  and  mid-nineteenth-century  types  of  both 
sexes — The  third  Sir  Robert  Peel  on  his  father's  death — Horse- 
dealer  Quartermaine  brings  the  three-hundred-guinea  Premier  round 
to  Whitehall  Gardens — Sir  Robert's  refusal  of  the  high  figure 
followed  by  the  fatal  accident  on  Constitution  Hill — Outside  and 
inside  Pembroke  Lodge — Sir  Henry  Calcraft's  introduction  to  a 
famous  veteran  in  Church  and  State — Lord  John  with  his  wind- 
gauge  under  the  veranda  and  amid  his  historical  souvenirs  and 
illustrious  visitors  in  his  drawing-room — Thomas  Carlyle  on  mis- 
representation of  himself  and  on  his  own  amiability — How  the  first 
Lord  Lytton  **  being  dead,  yet  speaketh  " — Lord  John  for  the  Jews 
— What  Carlyle  thought  of  Peel,  of  a  certain  Anglican  service  on  a 
Scotland-bound  steamer,  and  of  the  Church  of  England — H.  Calcraft's 
and  E.  F.  Leveson-Gower's  review  of  Grevillian  and  Ellician  verdicts 
— Johnny's  "calculated  indiscretions"  and  "dirty  tricks" — Mr. 
E.  F.  Leveson-Gower  and  Lord  John — "  You  will  know  what  to  say. 
Good-morning  !  " — Charles  Greville,  George  Payne,  and  **  the 
rigour  of  the  game  " — Palmerston  and  Russell  compared — Speci- 
mens of  Palmerstonian  wit  and  wisdom,  and  of  Russellian  aphoristic 
invective  in  duel  with  Sir  F.  Burdett — How  Whigs  are  born  not 
made,  and  Lord  John  preaches  ' '  rest  and  thankfulness  " — Canning 
on  the  "  mud-bespattered  Whigs  " — Cobbett's  vernacular  about  the 
Whigs  in  general,  and  Lord  John  in  particular,  as  the  *'  shoy-hoys  " 
of  politics — When  statesmen  fall  out,  body-servants  come  by  their 
own — What  Sir  J.  Graham's  valet  found  in  his  master's  pocket,  and 
what  he  did  with  it — '*  The  Widow's  Mite  "  :  how  Lord  John  came 
to  be  so  called — Lord  John  Russell  and  Earl  Granville  compare 
notes  about  preparatory  schools  and  agree  in  thinking  mutton  fat 
detestable — Adolphe  Thiers  on  Viscount  Palmerston  and  Lord 
John  Russell — The  Palmerstonian  laissez-aller  in  private  as 
well  as  public  life,  especially  in  connection  with  household  bills — 
Something  savours  more  of  the  "  hawk  "  than  of  the  **  merry- 
man  " — How  Palmerston  and  Russell  made  friends  in  1858  and 
"hated  each  other  more  than  ever" — The  secret  truth  about 
Palmerston's  dismissal  from  the  Foreign  Office  in  1852 — The  real 
cause  not  so  much  his  "  scores  off  his  own  bat  "  as  his  patronage  of 
revolutionary  movements  abroad  and  the  English  Court's  preference 
for  Legitimacy  in  general  and  Austrian  Absolutism  in  particular — 
Palmerston's  tit-for-tat  with  John|Russell — The  Militia  Bill  brings 

16  1 


Contents 

PAOt 

in  the  Conservatives  under  Lord  Derby,  and  puts  Malmesbur>'  in 
Palmerston's  place  at  the  Foreign  Office — Malmesbury  on  himself 
for  peace,  retrenchment,  and  reform — His  Foreign  Office  economies 
— His  short  way  with  the  Foreign  Service  messengers. 


CHAPTER  VI 

FROM     SIR     ROBERT    THE    THIRD     TO     LORD     DERBY     THE 

FOURTEENTH       ......    227 

A  Piccadilly  party  in  the  eighties — Enter  the  third  Sir  Robert  Peel 
— How  "  Magnifico  Pomposo  "  lays  down  the  law,  backs  his  opinion, 
is  proved  wrong  by  the  books,  and  pays  up  like  a  man — A  modern 
Zimri — From  father  to  son — Sir  Robert  on  his  seniors,  con- 
temporaries, and  men  and  things  in  general — Henry  Calcraft's 
promise  of  introducing  the  writer  to  **  the  lodger  in  Bruton  Street  " 
fulfilled — How  Lady  Granville  ran  the  gauntlet  of  Mr.  Greville's 
*'  horrid  "  friends — The  third  Sir  Robert's  strange  adventures  and 
imposing  appearance — His  views  about  the  fourteenth  Earl  of  Derby 
— Nineteenth-century  types  of  politics  and  play  for  the  Upper  Ten — 
Legislation  or  thimblerigging  ? — Political  country  houses  in  the 
West  and  their  company — S.  T.  Kekewich  to  be  lent  to  the  Liberals 
to  make  them  respectable — Sir  Stafford  Northcote  in  the  bosom 
of  his  family  and  neighbours — Sir  Stafford's  chestnuts — As  literate 
as  Thackeray  could  wish,  though  himself  preferring  Dickens  to 
Thackeray — At  home  with  Shakespeare  and  the  musical  glasses— 
On  the  practical  usefulness  of  the  study  of  Greek — Sides  with 
Archbishop  Temple  against  Sir  M.  E.  Grant-Duff — How  Priam  in 
St.  James's  Place  "waked  and  looked  on  drawing  his  curtains  by 
night" — The  South  Devon  "knight  of  the  shire,"  squire  of 
•'  Peamore,"  and  "the  Rupert  of  Debate  "  at  Eton  and  afterwards — 
The  former  introduces  the  writer  to  the  latter — The  fourteenth  Lord 
Derby  at  William  IV's  coronation  :  "  You  have  the  gout ;  must  not 
kneel,  my  lord  !"  "I  really  must  insist  on  kneeling,  Sir  " — The 
writer's  call  at  Knowsley — How  the  Earl  preferred  the  gout  to  the 
sherry — The  Countess  prefers  the  canal  barge  to  the  railway  train, 
and  the  Earl  the  towing-path  to  either — *'  One  thing  at  a  time  " — 
Newmarket  leaves  no  time  for  Imperial  or  home  politics — Receives 
a  wigging  from  the  Queen  and  anticipates  being  *'  beaten  horse  and 
foot  " — The  "  ruler  of  the  Queen's  Navee" — Chaffed  by  his  chief 
about  his  visit  to  Spithead — The  ministerial  fish-dinner — Lord 
Derby  proposes  "  Sir  John  Pakington  and  the  wooden  spoons  of  old 
England  " — The  Earl  makes  merry  about  Lord  John's  "very  bad 
company  "  with  Lord  and  Lady  Malmesbury — How  for  putting  on 

17  B 


Contents 

PAGE 

Wrong  dress  he  was  nearly  turned  out  by  the  porter — The  anecdote 
about  the  coal-scuttle — Succeeds  Duke  of  Wellington  as  Oxford 
Chancellor  in  1853 — Begins  with  Latin  oratory — Ten  years  later 
brings  down  gallery  and  boxes  by  his  Ciceronian  welcome  to  the 
Princess  of  Wales — "  Ipsa  adest " — How  and  where  in  dealing  with 
the  Duke  of  Argyll  Derby  learnt  the  wisdom  of  the  **  amuses  him  and 
don't  hurt  me  "  policy. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   POLITICAL  ADVENTURES   OF  THE    HOUSE   OF   STANLEY 

AND   OTHERS        ......    248 

Sir  John,  the  mediaeval  founder  of  the  family — Contrast  between  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  Earls — Lord  Stanley's  uses  at  the  Foreign 
Office  and  in  Fleet  Street — How  a  man  of  letters  became  a  Consul — 
The  Stanley  Civil  Service  Committee — Enter  an  Ambassador  with 
his  dispatch  boxes — Lord  Lyons  on  himself  and  others — How 
Lord  Granville  worked,  and  how  Bismarck  disappeared — Granville 
at  the  Foreign  Office  in  fact  and  fiction — How  the  work  was  really 
done — Sir  Charles  Trevelyan's  wrinkle  and  its  results — How 
Foreign  Secretaries  leave  their  mark — The  confessions  of  a  many- 
cousined  minister — What  the  second  Lord  Granville  owed  to  his 
mother — ^*'EnchanUe  de  vous  voivy  madame^  inviUi  ou  non  inviUe.''' 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FROM   ST.    MARY'S,   WINTON,   TO   CURZON    STREET     .  .    268 

At  Winchester — Old  Trollope,  young  Trollope,  and  "  Bob  "  Lowe — 
Tait  is  fined  a  pound  at  the  meeting  of  the  Debating  Society — Robert 
Lowe  as  Member  for  Kidderminster — His  article,  ' '  The  Past  Session 
and  the  New  Parliament,"  in  the  Edinburgh  Review — Lord  John 
Russell's  wrath  at  Lowe,  whom  he  regarded  as  the  devil  is  said  to 
look  upon  holy  water — His  Trojan  horse  similes — An  albino — 
"  The  next  thing  a  nigger  with  his  banjo  and  bones" — "  Vers  de 
sociiti'''' — Lowe  and  Canning's  dispatch  to  Lord  Minto — Lord 
Lyons's  letter  from  the  British  Embassy  at  Paris — What  Lowe 
owed  to  Disraeli — His  wrath  at  the  result  of  the  Abyssinian 
War — His  rapidity  of  utterance  but  not  of  reading — Disraeli  on 
Mrs.   Lowe — Mr.    Gladstone  as   a   raconteur ^  and  on    the  "big, 

big    d " — A    pupil,    together   with    Henry  Edward  Manning, 

of  Bishop  Wordsworth— Lord  Goschen's  opinion  of  Gladstone — 

18 


Contents 

PAQS 

Remarks  about  the  Oriel  common-room — At  Lady  Strangford's  — 
Lord  and  Lady  Aberdeen's  guest  at  Dollis  Hill  — The  G.O.M. 
wins  the  race  to  the  tea-table — His  kindness  to  the  outcast 
woman — Disraeli's  dislike  of  Thackeray  on  account  of  his  burlesque 
••Codlingsby  "— He  finds  Dickens  "a  delightful  man"  at  the 
Stanhope  dinner — The  trio,  '*  Popanilla,"  •*  Piccadilly,"  and  the 
"New  Republic"  (Mr.  W.  H.  Mallock) — His  aphorisms  repro- 
duced by  Mrs.  Reynolds — "  No  one  is  quite  well,  but  I  am  tolerably 
well  " — His  advice  to  the  two  little  boys — Lady  Chesterfield — Her 
sister  Lady  Anson's  retort — His  gratitude  to  his  wife — At  the  hotel 
in  Bournemouth — His  last  words,  *•  I  am  oppressed." 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  CAMBRIDGE    HOUSE   HENCHMAN   AND   ORACLE        .  .   293 

Abraham  Hayward  and  the  French  gentleman  on  *'  parasites  " — 
The  funeral  service  and  mourners — At  Blundell's  School,  Tiverton 
— Articled  to  an  Ilchester  solicitor — His  lineage  and  ancestors — The 
lady's  opinion  of  Hayward  :  "  What  a  horrid  man  !  " — Disliked  by 
Disraeli — Starts  the  Law  Magazine — Thiers  calls  on  Hayward — 
Their  conversation  about  the  alliance  which  was  "hopeless" — 
Bismarck  and  the  Kiel  Canal — In  the  Lyme  Pathway  case — Roebuck 
excludes  him  from  the  Benchers  of  the  Temple — "  Hayward, 
Hayward,  come  back!" — Violet  Fane,  impatient  at  first  but 
apologetic  afterwards — Melbourne  on  **  a  big  balance  at  the 
banker's  "—At  his  death-bed— Kinglake  with  him  to  the  last. 


CHAPTER  X 


SOCIETY,   AND   LETTERS  ....    308 

A.  W.  Kinglake  on  travelling  in  the  Crimea  then  and  now — The 
Eton  all-night  flogging — "  Eothen's  "  luck  in  coming  last — The 
duel  that  was  not  fought — The  two  seconds  at  the  Travellers' 
Club — Lord  Tennyson's  social  mentor  —  The  remnant  of  the 
Cambridge  '*  Apostles  "  in  London — A  distinguished  dinner-party  at 
Dean  Milman's — The  host's  stories  about  Frederick  the  Great — 
What  happens  when  Bishops  meet — The  life-long  social  competition 
of  Bishop  Wilberforce  and  Cardinal  Manning — Archbishop  Temple 
recalled  as  he  received  the  junior  clergy  in  his  Exeter  days — Cardinal 
Manning's    Riviera   in  Westminster — The  Cardinal  on  Anglican 

19 


Contents 

PAGE 

sermons  and  their  falling  off— How  Lord  Macaulay  was  introduced 

in  his  reading  to  a  "Mr.  Sponge" — '* dark  and  smells  of 

cheese  " — A  reminiscence  of  *'  Jorrocks's  Jaunts  and  Jollities  " — The 
rise  and  progress  of  R.  S.  Surtees — Why te- Melville  and  the  Divorce 
Court  phrase — Improved  on  by  George  Alfred  Lawrence — How 
**  Guy  Livingstone  "  was  written  and  with  what  results — The  meeting 
of  the  wits  in  Air  Street,  Regent  Street — George  Lawrence's  rise, 
progress,  character,  and  work — Introduced  at  a  Richmond  dinner  to 
Ouida  by  Harry  Stone — A  visit  to  Francis  E.  Smedley,  the  author 
of  "Frank  Fairlegh"  and  "  Harry  Cover  dale's  Courtship" — How 
the  nineteenth-century  masters  had  to  wait  till  the  twentieth  for  their 
full  influence  on  English  letters— J.  A.  Froude  and  W.  E.  H.  Lecky 
in  conversation  and  in  print — Thorold  Rogers  and  the  scientific 
historians — E.  A.  Freeman's  musical  rides  in  the  Mendip  lanes — 
Freeman,  Browning,  and  "Kentish  Sir  Byng" — Bishop  Stubbs 
in  the  fallentis  setnita  vita — The  historian  as  editor — Froude's 
advice  to  his  "  Eraser  "  writers — Dickens's  readings  in  the  West — 
How  Thackeray  was  coming,  but  thought  better  of  it — Dickens's 
intellectual  legacy  to  his  family — Disraeli  and  Dickens  on  the 
eloquence  of  their  time — The  Dickens  school — Edmund  Yates, 
his  originality  and  his  obligations — Had  he  an  Egeria? — From 
**  Edmund  "  to  "  Henry  " — "  Labby  "  as  raconteur  and  Radical — 
With  Grant-Duff  at  Orleans  House — How  Don  Emelio  Castelar 
visits  Galway  and  hears  his  health  proposed  in  an  unknown  tongue. 


CHAPTER  XI 

ROYALTIES,   COURTIERS,   AND   STATESMEN   AT  WORK  .   349 

How  and  when  the  country  first  knew  the  Prince  Consort — The 
opinion  formed  of  him  by  his  representative  contemporaries — 
His  services  to  the  Duchy  of  Cornwall  during  the  minority  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales — His  Cornwall  and  Devonshire  excursions — 
Royalty  and  Devonshire  cream  at  a  Dartside  vicarage — The  Prince 
Consort's  legacy  to  his  son  and  grandson — Greek  art  and  literature 
at  Marlborough  House — King  Edward  VII  as  an  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  undergraduate — "Oh!  ruddier  than  the  cherry"  in 
Canterbury  Quad — Greek  lexicon-making  on  the  eve  of  the  Prince's 
residence — H.  G.  Liddell,  of  Christ  Church — Robert  Scott,  of 
Balliol — Oxford  and  Cambridge  influences  on  the  culture  of  the 
coming  King — ^J.  E.  Thorold  Rogers  on  the  Oxford  Dictionary — 
The  Royal  fashion  of  hard  work  healthily  infectious — How  Lord 
Goschen  mastered  the  art  and  details  of  naval  administration  in  a 
fortnight — Lord  Hartiiigton  in  his  shirt-sleeves  at  Devonshire 
House  administering  India,  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  Sunday 

20 


Contents 

PAO« 

morning  church  bells,  with  the  occasional  refreshment  of  a  visitor 
and  of  the  Binomial  Theorem — Statesmen  of  the  Churchill  line, 
from  Bismarck  to  Winston — How  Uncle  Salisbury  and  the  great 
Elizabethan  Cecils  live  again  in  Mr.  Arthur  Balf)ur — The  first 
Marquis  of  Abergavenny— How,  with  Lord  Beaconsfield  and 
Markham  SpofForth  as  his  "  man-of-all-work "  he  recreated  the 
Conservative  Party,  and  brought  it  to  victory  in  1874 — The  first 
Lord  Burnham,  being  also  the  first  of  all  modern  newspaper  men — 
The  first  Lord  Rothschild  of  fact  and  fiction— Lord  Rothschild 
and  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  on  double  surnames. 


INDEX 


379 


21 


GREAT  VICTORIANS 


CHAPTER    I 

MITRE   AND   BATON 

A  memorable  Confirmation  address  in  the  old  church,  Bideford — 
Henry  of  Exeter's  watchword  for  the  newly  confirmed, 
"  Incorporate  "  into  the  Body  of  Christ,  the  Church — The 
skull-cap  and  episcopal  robes  in  the  religious  light — Wizard 
or  priest  ? — An  address  that  reaffirms  all  those  doctrines 
whose  repudiation  by  the  Brampford  Speke  clergyman,  and 
whose  disregard  by  the  Primate,  Dr.  Howley,  had  brought 
about  Henry's  long  war  against  the  Gorham  heresies  and 
his  excommunication  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury — In- 
difference of  his  diocese  to  these  escapades  and  local  pride — 
His  intrepidity  as  the  champion  of  the  reaction  to  clerical 
mediaevalism  and  the  subordination  of  State  to  Church — 
Bishop  Phillpotts'  position,  social  and  political,  as  a  type 
and  leader  of  that  movement — His  gradual  preparation  for 
it,  first  as  Tory  High  Church  pamphleteer  h  la  Jonathan 
Swift — Society  success  began  when  he  became  Dean  of 
Chester — Famous  hosts  and  guests  in  and  out  of  London — 
Diocesan  work  and  social  progresses  in  Devonshire — The 
right-hand  man,  Archdeacon  Freeman,  more  advanced  and 
uncompromising  than  the  Bishop  himself — The  leavening 
of  the  West  with  anti-Reformation  principles  by  Mr. 
Prynne  at  St.  Mary's,  Plymouth — The  devotee  who  not 
only  brushed  the  church  floor  but  licked  it  with  her  tongue 
23 


Great  Victorians 

thoroughly  to  clean  it,  and  made  the  Bishop  smack  his  lips 
with  delight — Social  discourses  on  Dr.  Johnson's  text  about 
the  devil  as  the  first  Whig — At  daggers  drawn  with  Jeffrey, 
Brougham,  and  all  concerned  with  the  Edinburgh  Review — 
A  Bishop  after  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  own  heart — At 
Buckingham  Palace  with  the  Duke  as  Oxford  Chancellor  to 
congratulate  Queen  Victoria  on  her  marriage — A  little  dia- 
logue on  punctuality  as  the  politeness  of  princes — The 
Bishop  before  the  looking-glass  at  his  palace — The  episcopal 
sugar-plums  and  picture-books — The  Bishop  and  the  hunt- 
ing parsons — The  Bishop's  gracious  way  with  an  Evangelical 
clergyman  about  the  "Shebbear  rogues"  —  Henry  of 
Exeter's  table-talk  as  the  rehearsal  of  his  speeches  in 
Parliament — The  Bishop  and  Lord  Derby  understand  each 
other  about  the  Canada  Clergy  Reserves  Bill — Landor's 
"  Belial  Bishop  " — Henry  stands  for  damnation,  not  con- 
demnation— The  gamecock  of  the  aristocratic  Tories — The 
house  party  at  Mount  Edgcumbe  and  what  came  of  it — 
The  conqueror  of  Waterloo  and  Henry  of  Exeter  meet — 
The  Bishop  lionizes  the  Duke  over  Exeter  Cathedral — The 
Duke's  account  of  it  given  to  the  Rev.  G.  R.  Gleig — The 
dark  and  fearful  face  in  the  bath-chair — Henry  of  Exeter's 
doctrines  and  influence  carried  into  Somerset  by  the  Rev. 
M.  F.  Sadler  of  Bridgwater,  who  exercised  on  Archdeacon 
Denison  something  of  the  same  influence  as  Archdeacon 
Freeman  exercised  on  Bishop  Phillpotts — The  Archdeacon's 
brother,  the  Speaker,  on  "St.  George  without  the  drag-on" — 
The  Archdeacon's  own  account  of  his  conversion  to  Ritual- 
ism— The  Vicar  of  East  Brent  and  the  school  inspector — 
The  latter  welcomed  with  **  Old  Daddy  Longlegs  wouldn't 
say  his  prayers  " — The  first  Duke  of  Wellington  as  a  West 
of  England  worthy — Restoration  of  the  Wellington  pillar  on 
the  Blackdown  Hills — The  Duke's  West  of  England  and 
other  progresses — The  Duke  at  Kilve  Court,  Hartrow  Manor, 
and  Hatfield — The  Duke  as  I  remember  him  in  the  West — 
His  grace's  short  way  with  blackmailers  and  other  people's 
duns — The  second  Duke's   likeness  and  unlikeness  to  his 

24 


Mitre  and  Baton 

father — The  same  short,  sharp,  sententious  manner  of  speech 
and  of  dealing  with  his  fellow-men — How  not  to  become  a 
coroner — Sir  Henry  Irving's  train  from  Strathfieldsaye — A 
dangerously  good  memory  for  exposing  the  plagiarisms  in 
travellers'  tales  and  the  inconsistencies  of  fiction-mongers 
about  their  famous  friends,  e.g.  the  Cumbrays  and  the 
recipient  of  Bismarck's  stolen  goods  from  Gatnbetta — The 
Duke,  George  IV,  and  the  cavalry  of  various  nations — 
The  Duke  as  an  art  patron — "  Not  going  to  let  Coutts* 
people  know  what  a  fool  I  have  been  " — How  the  Duke 
raised  a  Paris  monument  in  H.B.M.  Embassy,  29  Faubourg 
Saint-Honore — The  Duke,  Lady  Catherine  Pakenham,  and 
the  young  physician. 


Time,  during  the  early  sixties.  Scene,  the  old 
church  at  Bideford,  North  Devon.  A  shortish, 
stoutish,  dark-complexioned,  and  beetle-browed 
old  man  in  episcopal  robes,  erect  and  motion- 
less before  the  ancient  altar,  addressing  some 
ten  or  a  dozen  young  people  whom  he  has  just 
confirmed.  The  voice  as  soft  as  any  that  can 
ever  have  been  heard  beneath  that  time-worn 
roof,  yet  penetrating  into  each  remote  corner 
as  well  as  now  and  then  quite  ringing  in  its 
articulation.  Such  were  the  earnestness  and 
strength  in  which  the  speaker  gave  out  the 
word  serving  as  the  keynote  of  his  discourse. 
Incorporate  (into  the  very  Body  of  Christ),  '*  be- 
cause," he  continued,  "  regenerate  by  Baptism 
at  your  infancy,  you  have  now  entered  into  the 
full  privileges  and  responsibilities  of  that  Sacra- 

25 


Great  Victorians 

ment."  Words  like  these  were  charged  with 
associations  of  the  struggle  between  Church  and 
State  in  which  a  few  years  earlier  Henry  of 
Exeter  appeared  as  the  Anglo-Catholic  cham- 
pion, the  restorer  of  mediaeval  prerogatives  and 
formularies,  when  as  yet  Keble,  Newman,  and 
Pusey  were  unknown  names.  The  doctrines  now 
condensed  into  a  few  sentences  for  the  benefit 
of  his  Confirmation  ordinands  were  those  for 
which  he  had  contended  not  only  in  the  Gorham 
case,  but  during  the  next  year  had  caused  him 
first  to  denounce  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
as  a  heretic,  and  next  formally  to  excommunicate 
him.  This  step,  of  course,  involved  his  repudia- 
tion of  the  Royal  authority  and  of  the  Privy 
Council.  According  to  the  Bishop  that  body, 
among  its  other  offences,  had  ignored  the 
distinction  between  truth  and  falsehood,  and  had 
given  by  their  spokesmen,  the  judges,  decisions 
notoriously  at  variance  with   facts. 

Of  these  things  nothing  was  known  by  the 
younger  part  of  the  congregation,  and  little  per- 
haps was  remembered  about  them  by  their  elders, 
who  had  conducted  them  to  the  prelatic  presence. 
The  personal  details  noticed  by  the  others  in  the 
oldest  nineteenth -century  type  of  the  reaction 
from  the  evangelical  movement  begun  by  the 
■Wesleys,  were  only  those  which  most  impressed 

26 


Mitre  and  Baton 

the  present  writer  in  what  was  not  his  earliest 
ghmpse  of  this  extraordinary  man.  A  skull- 
cap surmounted  the  bushy  and  projecting  eye- 
brows, and  in  the  dimly  lighted  structure,  weirdly 
contrasting  with  the  white  surplice  and  with 
the  generally  low  voice,  seemed  suggestive 
of  a  mediaeval  wizard  dropping  solemn  spells. 
During  the  first  half  of  his  episcopate  Dr.  Phill- 
potts  improved  the  social  success  that  had  come 
to  him  unsought  when  Dean  of  Chester.  **  Yes, 
whatever  the  truculence  he  suppresses  so  cleverly, 
I  like  the  bitter-sweet  flavour  of  my  Henry's 
talk,  with  the  occasional  scathing  innuendoes, 
uttered  in  the  most  mellifluous  and  softest  tone 
of  Christian  charity.  And  then  the  delightfully 
sudden  transitions,  as  it  were,  from  the  Mount 
Gerizim  of  blessing  to  the  Mount  Ebal  of 
anathema.  That  is  the  real  secret  of  the 
attention  he  gets  When  speaking  in  Parliament. 
There  is  something  that  reminds  one  of  the 
flavour  of  an  olive  after  dinner  in  the  change 
from  episcopal  benediction  to  the  criticism  as 
of  some  *  devil's  advocate,'  but  all  in  the  same 
gentle,  gracious  voice."  Such  were  the  verdicts 
heard  at  club  and  at  dining-table  on  Henry  of 
Exeter  in  senate  and  salon.  His  pen  had  first 
brought  him  into  notice  many  years  earlier.     It 

now  continued  and  completed  with  an  increasing 

27 


Great  Victorians 

public  what  his  tongue  had  begun  for  the  com- 
paratively few.  In  1839  his  occasional  con- 
tributions to  the  British  Critic  closely  united 
Phillpotts  with  the  leaders  of  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment. At  the  same  time  his  prestige  and  even 
popularity  as  a  diocesan  reached  the  high -water 
mark  among  the  West  of  England  clergy  and 
laity.  Hard  riding,  and,  if  kept  within  the 
bounds  of  decorum,  something  like  hard  living 
on  the  part  of  his  official  subjects,  were  not 
condemned  by  the  Bishop  if  they  went  with 
enough  of  High  Toryism  and  High  Church. 
That  combination  made  the  Archdeacon  of 
Totnes,  the  historian  Froude's  father,  an  epis- 
copal favourite,  and  his  son,  J.  A.  Eroude,  an 
object  of  the  episcopal  wrath,  when,  having  given 
up  his  deacon's  orders  in  1848,  he  changed  from 
St.  Ninian's  biographer  in  J.  H.  Newman's  series 
into  the  author  of  "  The  Nemesis  of  Eaith,"  and 
the  panegyrist  of  the  eighth  Henry  and  the  Pro- 
testant Reformers.  But  the  Bishop  found  himself 
the  idol  of  the  Tory  squires  and  high-flying  vicars 
of  the  west,  chiefly  from  out-doing  even  Sir 
Charles  Wetherell  in  abuse  of  the  new  London 
University  and  ridicule  of  its   degrees. ^ 

^  To  surpass  Wethereirs  vituperation  must  have  been  difficult, 
for  Wetherell  it  was  who  declared  that  the  scorn  and  contempt  of 
mankind  should  prevent  the  new  University  from  granting  degrees, 

28 


Mitre  and  Baton 

The  particular  vein  so  effectively  character- 
istic of  the  Bishop's  private  talk,  in  the  opinion 
of  Lord  Granville  and  other  good  judges  then 
leaders  in  the  gilded  chamber,  first  became  a 
feature  of  parliamentary  discussion  under  the 
Aberdeen  Coalition  Government,  1852-3.  "  The 
Canada  Clergy  Reserves  Bill,"  '  Lord  Granville 
told  me,  '*  roused  Henry  of  Exeter,  at  Lord 
Derby's  instance,  to  a  series  of  personal  attacks 
upon  us  for  bandits  and  Chartists,  which  first 
brought  out  the  Bishop  as  a  parliamentary 
debater."  Society  did  not,  in  its  own  words, 
take  its  Henry  too  literally,  or  even  seriously. 
It  always  enjoyed  the  sport  of  his  outbreaks 
against  his  pet  aversions.  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
Edward  Irving,  Bishop  Blomfield,  and  Arch- 
bishop  Howley. 

Peel's  apostasy  over  Catholic  Emancipation 
would  surely,  he  said,  be  followed  by  vengeance 
from  on  high.  The  first  blow  that  the  Bishop 
had  the  pleasure  of  witnessing  came  when,  dining, 
with  the  Duke  of  Sussex,  he  received  the  news, 
Eebruary  28,   1829,  of  Peel's  defeat  at  Oxford. 

^  The  earliest  proposal  of  legislation  on  this  subject  had  led  to 
Burke's  quarrel  with  Fox  in  1793.  I"  that  year  its  general  eifect 
was  to  set  apart  one-seventh  of  the  waste  lands  for  the  support 
of  the  Protestant  clergy.  Subsequent  opposition  to  it  was 
periodically  renewed  till  its  final  repeal,  in  spite  of  all  that  Lord 
Derby  and  Bishop  Phillpotts  could  do,  by  the  Aberdeen  Ministry 
in  1853. 

29 


Great  Victorians 

About  the  same  time  Edward  Irving's  sermons 
at  the  Hatton  Garden  Church  attracted  the 
whole  town.  It  was  even  said,  no  doubt  untruly, 
that  Phillpotts,  carefully  disguised,  had  been 
prompted  by  curiosity  to  hear  this  extra- 
ordinary creature  denouncing  PeeFs  surrender  to 
the  Papists  as  likely  to  renew  the  bonfires  and 
butcheries  of  Smithfield.  It  was,  at  least,  cer- 
tainly not  the  voice  of  Phillpotts  which,  inter- 
rupting the  preacher  with  a  **  That  is  not  true," 
provoked  the  repartee^  "It  is  well  when  the  devil 
speaks  from  the  mouth  of  one  possessed.  It 
shows  that  the  truth  works." 

**  Who  and  what,"  at  another  London  dinner - 
table  about  this  time,  asked  Phillpotts,  *'  is  this 
Irving?" 

"  The  most  powerful  voice,  equally  musical 
and  tender,  the  most  admirable  enunciation,  the 
most  glorious  figure  that  ever  adorned  the  British 
platform." 

The  answer,  one  who  was  present  told  me, 
came  from  a  fellow -diner  not  previously 
noticed  by  Phillpotts.  This  was  the  just  men- 
tioned London  prelate,  Charles  James  Blomfield, 
then  the  ideal  specimen  of  a  "  Greek  play 
Bishop,"  whose  scholarship  Phillpotts,  later  in 
the  evening,  took  an  opportunity  of  showing  as 
it  was   seen   by   foreign   judges,   supplementing 

30 


Mitre  and  Baton 

the  exposure  with  a  few  biographical  notes  of 
his  own.  **  In  his  college  library,"  said  Phill- 
potts,  "  Blomfield  had  the  run  of  all  Porson's 
notes,  yet  with  this  help  he  could  only  manage 
to  produce  an  edition  of  ^schylus,  denounced 
by  all  German  critics  for  the  looseness  of  its 
text  and  the  arbitrariness  of  its  commentary.'* 
*'  Neither  the  classics  nor  Liberalism,"  continued 
Dr.  Phillpotts,  "proved  profitable.  He  there- 
fore went  over  to  the  Conservatives,  became  bear 
leader  to  a  cub  of  quality,  and  contrived  to  com- 
bine with  his  Chester  episcopate  a  benefice  of 
great  value.  The  two  combined  to  make  him 
the  wealthiest  pluralist  of  his  time."  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  overhearing  this  remark,  could  not  restrain 
the  comment,  *'  This  beats  the  Gracchi  complain- 
ing of  sedition,"  for  as  a  pluralist  Henry  of  Exeter 
easily  distanced  all  the  ecclesiastics  of  his  day. 
*'  A  nineteenth-century  Swift,"  was  Peel's  de- 
scription of  the  Anglican  champion  who  between 
1809  and  1828  wielded  the  most  formidable 
pen  then  at  work  on  the  High  Tory  press.  The 
Edinburgh  Reviewers,  who  gibbeted  him  in 
every  issue,  were  more  than  repaid  in  their  own 
coin.  Here  is  a  specimen  of  the  Phillpottian 
invective  against  the  sons  of  darkness,  with  whom 
Francis  Jeffrey,  T.  B.  Macaulay,  and  others  were 
identified.      The    then    Prebendary    of    Durham 

31 


Great  Victorians 

allowed  to  each  of  them  the  slime  of  the  serpent 
without  any  pretensions  to  its  strength.  The 
serpent's  filth  and  the  venom  disgraced  and  de- 
filed every  line  on  every  page.  What  pleasure 
could  there  theji  be  in  hunting  down  the  loath- 
some creature,  through  masses  of  his  own  pes- 
tilential dirt?  Phillpotts  on  discovering  any  of 
the  Edinburgh  gang  in  the  corner  of  a  room 
he  had  entered  always  abruptly  left  it,  as  it 
was  natural  should  be  done  by  a  controversialist 
who  had  charged  the  "  Blue  and  Yellow  "  with 
converting  the  "  Whole  Duty  of  Man  "  into  a 
series  of  libels  by  labelling  every  vice  with  the 
name  of  the  Squire,  the  Vicar,  and  the  Church- 
warden. Gradually  Henry  of  Exeter's  periodical 
exhibitions  and  outbreaks  in  press,  in  Parliament, 
or  on  platform  were  looked  for  in  the  same  way 
and  with  the  same  effect  as  Lord  John  Russell's 
indiscretions,  whether  from  calculation  or  im- 
pulse ;  while  dinner -tables  and  drawing-rooms 
discussed,  not  only  in  London  but  throughout  the 
land,  "  Henry  of  Exeter's  last,"  just  as  the  best 
part  of  a  century  later  men  laughed  over  the 
pranks  and  oddities  in  his  own  paper,  Truth, 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  or  among  his  North- 
ampton constituents,  of  another  Henry,  whose 
name  was  Labouchere.  So  it  went  on  through 
the  militant  part  of  the  episcopal  course.     Henry 

32 


Mitre  and  Baton 

of  Exeter's  mission  was  to  bring  not  peace  but 
a  sword,  and,  so  far  as  concerned  the  lay  world, 
less  to  revive  old  doctrines  than  to  create  a  new 
sensation.  Most  of  the  paradoxes  with  which 
the  Tractarian  leaders  fluttered  the  Evangelical 
dovecotes  can  be  traced  back  to  the  Bishop's  bolts, 
hurled  often  from  a  blue  sky.  Thus  one  day 
the  Bishop  elaborated  an  argument  that  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Real  Presence  was  inherent  in  the 
Thirty -nine  Articles.  Henry  of  Exeter's  luck 
passed  into  as  much  of  a  proverb  as  his  audacity. 
In  the  course  of  his  onslaughts  upon  Archbishop 
Howley,  culminating  in  his  "  excommunication  " 
of  the  Primate,  libel  was  piled  on  libel  and 
outrage  upon  outrage.  So,  too,  in  his  diatribes, 
written  or  spoken,  against  the  two  Earls,  Grey 
and  his  son-in-law  Durham.  The  latter  showed 
how  he  smarted  under  the  sting  by  bringing  the 
matter,  with  some  strong  comments  of  his  own, 
before  the  Upper  House.  Lyndhurst  immediately 
called  him  to  order,  with  the  result  that  he  had 
to  apologize  to  their  lordships  generally,  and  the 
Bishop  in  particular^  for  the  language,  which  he 
admitted  to  have  been  too  strong.  As  for  the 
saintlike  Primate,  formally  denounced  by  Phill- 
potts  as  anti -Christ,  his  partisans  actually  began 
libel  proceedings.  They  came  to  nothing,  and 
all  that  the  rest  of  the  world  said  or  thought 
was,  "How  like  our  own  Henry  !  " 

33  c 


Great  Victorians 

Joanna  Baillie,  though  a  Presbyterian  clergy- 
man's daughter,  had  made  herself  the  chief 
hostess  of  celebrities  in  Church  and  State  during 
the  first  thirty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
During  his  episcopal  days,  as  he  had  been  before 
them,  Phillpotts  was  her  frequent  guest.  At  her 
table,  April  i8,  1828,  Phillpotts  so  dazzled  some 
and  delighted  all  that  his  fellow-diner.  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  exclaimed,  *'  In  point  of  conversation,  the 
wigs  against  the  wits  for  a  guinea  !  "  The  array 
of  episcopal  headgear  caused  Scott  to  remind 
Miss  Baillie  before  the  evening  had  come  to  an 
end  of  the  appropriateness  of  Crabbe's  couplet  :— 

Where  all  above  us  was  a  solemn  row 
Of  priests  and  deacons — so  were  all  below. 

On  this  occasion,  as  on  most  others,  Phillpotts 
held  his  own  against  all  the  crack  talkers  of 
the  time—"  Conversation  Sharpe,"  ^  Lord  John 
Russell,  Jekyll,  and  Sydney  Smith.  Sir  Walter 
watched  it  all  as  a  tournament  of  talk,  silently 
appraising  the  merits  of  the  competitors,  and, 
on  the  whole,  in  favour  of  awarding  the  palm 
to  the  Dean  of  Chester,  as  Phillpotts  had  just 
become.  Only  three  years  had  now  to  pass 
before  the  Dean   of  Chester  became  Bishop  of 

^  Richard  Sharpe,  a  wealthy  business  man,  for  a  short  time 
M.P.,  the  maker  of  one  speech  and  never  heard  of  afterwards. 

34 


Mitre  and  Baton 

Exeter.  He  took  the  first  opportunity  of  giving 
the  House  a  taste  of  the  Phillpottian  invective, 
tempered  by  the  Phillpottian  irony.  But  at  first 
his  hearers  were  so  much  interested  in  his  per- 
sonal appearance  as  not  to  pay  full  attention  to 
his  words. 

At  the  age  of  fifty -three,  when  his  episco- 
pate began,  it  was  a  most  striking  presence.  The 
deep  olive  complexion,  the  small  regular  features 
in  the  oval  face,  and  the  fine  forehead,  glowed 
with  life  and  health  of  mind  and  body,  and  were 
crowned  by  a  lofty  mass  of  thick  black  hair,  such 
as  those  who  cannot  recall  Phillpotts  may  have 
seen  in  the  Cambridge  scholar,  J.  E.  B.  Mayor. 
The  impressive  signs  of  mental  and  physical 
activity  were  undiminished  even  to  the  threshold 
of  old  age.  Candour  and  mildness  beamed  from 
his  countenance.  The  soft,  subdued,  but  per- 
fectly clear  voice  prepossessed  all  who  heard  it 
in  his  favour.  Perfect  placidity  within  and  with- 
out formed  the  chief  impression  conveyed  by 
his  whole  bearing,  and  especially  by  the  half- 
closed  eyes,  which,  if  at  other  times  they  could 
flash  fire  when  he  first  rose  to  address  the 
assembly  were  almost  hidden  by  the  dropped 
eyelids.  He  invariably  began  with  a  confession 
of  his  reluctance  to  trouble  their  lordships,  and 
an  assurance  that  he  would  not  long  trespass  on 

35 


Great  Victorians 

their  attention.  The  smoothness  and  ease  with 
which  ideas  and  arguments  fell  from  his  lips 
showed  the  complete  mastery  of  his  subject  and 
the  care  with  which  facts,  figures,  dates,  and 
relevant  details  of  all  kinds  had  been  prepared. 
He  invariably  prefaced  his  remarks  with  some 
self-deprecatory  sentences.  He  spoke  "  under 
correction,"  and  with  a  painful  feeling  of  his 
own  unfitness  for  addressing  their  lordships  on 
the  particular  matter  in  hand.  But  duty  called  ; 
who  was  he  that  he  should  disobey?  The  par- 
ticular duty  that  first  familiarized  the  Chamber 
with  his  debating  and  oratorical  methods  was 
that  of  co-operating  with  the  fourteenth  Earl  of 
Derby,  the  Conservatives  generally,  and  the 
Peelite  malcontents  in  particular,  to  throw  out 
Lord  Aberdeen's  Coalition  Ministry.  The  great 
Earl,  a  sportsman  who  never  quite  lost  his  fancy 
for  an  obsolete  pastime,  spoke  of  his  ally  as  a 
*'  lawn -sleeved  gamecock,"  to  be  kept  at  all 
costs  in  good  humour,  and  to  be  humoured 
equally  as  regards  temper  and  health.  The 
caution  was  not  unneeded,  for  the  pride  of  Henry 
Phillpotts  at  least  equalled  that  of  all  the  Stan- 
leys .  On  one  occasion  the  Earl  treated  his  Henry 
in  rather  a  cavalier  fashion.  Phillpotts  was  up 
in  arms  at  once,  would  not  open  his  lips  in  the 

debate,    and   left    the    House    without    saying    a 

36 


Mitre  and  Baton 

word.  The  Tory  chief  never  repeated  the  in- 
discretion, and  the  two  men  planned  and  executed 
their  little  conspiracies  for  the  future  on  perfectly 
equal  terms.  Even  in  this,  secularly,  his  most 
aggressive  period,  the  Bishop  had  surprisingly 
few  personal  enemies.  It  was  Derby  himself 
who  explained  their  absence  by  saying,  '*  All 
Englishmen  at  heart  like  sport.  Such  sport  as 
the  episcopal  bench  now  gives  them  they  never 
knew  before."  Whatever  abuse  might  be  heard 
of  Henry  came  nearly  always  from  one  and  the 
same  quarter.  And  Walter  Savage  Landor  did 
not  vent  more  Billingsgate  against  Phillpotts 
than  against  the  poet  Wordsworth.  Addressing 
a  friend  in  the  Exeter  diocese,  he  characteristic- 
ally exclaimed,  "  God  preserve  you  from  your 
Belial  Bishop  !  " 

"  I  think,"  went  on  Landor,  **  I  am  beginning 
to  understand  Satan  better  than  I  did  since 
coming  across  not  only  Henry  but  one  of  his 
pet  priests  named  Wackerbarth,  who  elevates  the 
Host,  crosses  himself,  forgets  the  burning  of 
heretics,  and  condenses  the  Phillpottian  theology 
into  a  few  explanatory  words  better  than  was 
ever  done  by  his  master,  after  the  following 
fashion  :  '  Those  who  object  to  the  persecution 
and  extermination  of  heretics,  do  ipso  facto 
charge  all  theological    doctrine   and  belief   with 

37 


Great  Victorians 

being  uncertain  and  dubious.  For  God  will 
assuredly  punish  the  rejection  of  doctrines  essen- 
tial to  salvation.  Equally  sure  is  it  that  the 
Church  knows  what  these  doctrines  are.  Does  it 
not,  then,  follow  that  those  who  try  to  withdraw 
people  from  this  faith  should  be  treated  as  we 
treat  a  mad  dog  loose  in  the  streets  of  the  city  ? '  " 
'*  Our  Henry,"  in  public  and  private  usually 
so  gracious  and  mild  of  tongue,  when  he  thought 
the  occasion  required  it,  or  some  weaker  brother 
had  wrongly  shrunk  from  the  strong  word  him- 
self,  could  use   a   '*  big,  big  d "   with   great 

effect.  The  Bishop,  I  heard  from  one  who  wit- 
nessed the  scene,  formed  one  of  the  congregation 
in  a  Torquay  church.  The  meek  and  gentle 
incumbent,  who  happened  to  be  officiating,  had 
a  conscientious  dislike  of  strong  language  in  the 
Communion  Service ;  he  therefore  substituted 
**  condemnation  "  for  the  more  awful  word.  The 
Bishop  reared  his  head,  and  as  he  knelt  with  the 
rest  of  the  congregation  roared  out  "  damna- 
tion." In  most,  if  not  all,  the  local  stories  of 
the  Bishop  as  regards  his  diocesan  relations,  the 
hunting  parson,  throughout  the  whole  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  a  peculiarly  indigenous  Devon- 
shire growth;,  played  a  prominent  part,  and  was 
generally  represented  either  by  one  of  the  Rev. 
John  Russell's  set,  if  not  by  the  famous  '*  Jack  " 

38 


Mitre  and  Baton 

Russell  himself.  That  clerical  Nimrod's  ad- 
mirably executed  biography  so  runs  over  with 
characteristic  stories  of  this  kind  that  to  this 
volume  it  will  be  safer  to  refer  the  reader  than 
to  risk  the  infliction  on  him  of  anything  that  it 
may  have  familiarized  him  with  already.  At  a 
great  West  of  England  country  house,  I  believe 
Mount  Edgcumbe,  some  one  spoke  about  the 
wealth  of  the  clergy,  and  implied  a  disregard 
for  the  scriptural  warning  of  its  being  '*  easier 
for  a  camel  to  go  through  a  needle's  eye  than 
for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
"  Rather,"  at  last  said  Henry,  "  consider  the  im- 
pediments to  salvation  of  which  the  clergy 
relieve  you.  To  protect  us  from  violence  the 
soldier  falls  by  the  sword.  The  physician  is 
of  all  men  the  least  careful  about  his  health. 
If  I  were  to  die  worth  half  a  million  I  should 
only  be  the  absorbent  of  a  poison  that  would 
have  swollen  up  ten  men  to  a  needle  eye  of 
impracticability." 

Older  than  Pusey,  Newman,  and  all  the  Oxford 
Tractarians  by  between  twenty  and  thirty  years, 
Phillpotts,  as  an  Anglican  type,  marks  less  the 
reaction  from  the  Wesleys  and  the  Evan- 
gelical revival  than  a  harking  back  to  the 
mediaeval  doctrine,  discipline,  and  rites  of  the 
Stuart   age,   when   no   one   foresaw   the   coming 

39 


Great  Victorians 

violence  of  the  Tudor  "  Deformation."  Thorough 
and  with  the  same  objects  in  view,  was,  he  never 
concealed,  as  much  the  watchword  of  his  policy 
as  it  had  been  that  of  Laud  and  Strafford. 
Phillpotts  did  not  so  much  denounce  the  Tudor 
settlement  of  Church  and  State  as  altogether 
ignore  it,  tracing  his  sacerdotal  and  episcopal 
pedigree  from  a  date  three  or  four  centuries 
earlier  than  Gregory  the  Great's  despatch  of 
Augustine,  or  any  other  Bishop,  to  these  shores. 
Such  intercourse  with  the  Vatican  no  doubt  had 
its  usefulness  here ;  it  no  more  created  the 
Church  of  England  than  it  did  the  English 
monarchy.  As  a  Somersetshire  man  the  Bishop's 
imagination  and  reason  were  appreciably  affected 
by  the  prehistoric  connection  of  Glastonbury  with 
a  whole  line  of  primitive  Churchrnen.  These 
were  his  "  Fathers."  The  surest  and  shortest 
way  to  his  favour  was  for  some  of  his  clergy 
to  expend  real  research  and  thought  on  empha- 
sizing and  illustrating  that  view.  His  favourite 
chaplain,  Archdeacon  Freeman,  owed  his  in- 
fluence with  him  almost  entirely  to  a  book  of 
great  learning,  in  which  all  this  had  been  done. 
Next  to  Freeman,  the  henchman  specially  com- 
mended to  his  chief  by  an  enthusiastic  adoption 
of  these  ideas  was  one  of  the  Plymouth  clergy 
named  Prynne,  who  made  the  Bishop  smack  his 

40 


Mitre  and  Baton 

lips  with  delight  by  relating  how  a  lady  of  his 
own  congregation,  not  content  with  brushing  the 
church  floor,  had  no  sooner  swept  than  she 
insisted  on   licking  it  with  her  tongue. 

The  stories  once  most  widely  circulated  about 
Henry  of  Exeter  among  his  own  people  generally 
bring  his  rougher  side  into  prominence .  He  had, 
however,  his  gentler  moods.  One  of  his  ordi- 
nation candidates  had  to  preach  a  sermon  before 
him.  The  Bishop  observed  that  a  young  lady 
in  the  congregation  seemed  specially  interested 
in  the  discourse.  The  preacher,  summoned  to 
the  episcopal  library  for  the  verdict  on  his  per- 
formance, found  the  great  man  visibly  dissatis- 
fied. "  And,  my  lord,"  he  stammered  out, 
"  some  of  those  who  heard  it  liked  it  so  much." 
"  Meaning,"  rejoined  Henry,  "  the  young  lady 
to  whom  you  are  engaged.  Now,"  he  went  on, 
"let  me  give  you  a  piece  of  advice.  Don't 
believe  any  compliments  she  pays  you  before 
you  are  married,  and  after  you  are  married  be 
sure  to  profit  by  all  her  criticism."  When,  how- 
ever, the  young  man  got  to  his  fiancee's  abode, 
he  found  the  first  wedding  present  had  come 
from  his  diocesan.  One  of  his  older  clergy, 
who  had  long  held  the  living  of  Shebbear 
(locally  pronounced  "  Shebber  "),  was  an  Evan- 
gehcal  saint.     '^  Shebber  rogues  "   indicated  the 

41 


Great  Victorians 

local  opinion  of  his  parishioners.  The  incum- 
bent, talking  with  the  Bishop,  referred  to  this 
term  of  reproach.  **  I  am  sure,  Mr.  Foulkes," 
came  the  gracious  comment,  **  that  under  you 
they  must  have  outgrown  it."  Henry  of  Exeter 
owed  his  mitre  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington  as 
Prime  Minister.  The  Duke  as  Chancellor  walked 
side  by  side  with  Phillpotts  in  the  Oxford  Pro- 
cession from  Pall  Mall  to  Buckingham  Palace 
to  present  the  congratulatory  address  on  Queen 
Victoria's  marriage,  February  lo,  1840.  The 
admission  to  the  Royal  presence  was  a  little  de- 
layed. The  Bishop  seemed  a  trifle  impatient ; 
the  Duke  said  something  about  the  pressure  on 
the  Sovereign's  time.  *'  May  I,"  rejoined  the 
Bishop,  "  recall  to  your  Grace  a  motto,  which,  I 
think,  you  once  said  should  be  hung  in  the  halls 
of  all  sovereigns  ?  It  is  the  French  motto, 
L exactitude  est  la  polite sse  des  Rois^ 

From  the  Great  Exhibition  year,  185 1,  on- 
wards, London  drawing  -  rooms  and  clubs 
abounded  in  little  anecdotes  like  these.  Echoes 
of  them  reached  the  uttermost  corners  of  the 
western  diocese^  coupling  so  habitually  the  ducal 
sharp  sententiousness  with  the  prompit  episcopal 
repartee  that  the  names  of  the  two  began  to 
suggest  each  other,  and  the  admiring  Devon- 
shire clergy  of  whatever  school  almost  doubted 

42 


Mitre  and  Baton 

which  was  the  greater  man  of  the  two— the 
conqueror  of  Napoleon  or  the  champion,  against 
Primate,  Privy  Council,  and  Monarch,  of  medi- 
aevalism  in  Anglican  doctrine  and  ordinance. 
At  the  Athenaeum  Club  the  Bishop  met  Talley- 
rand, and  intrepidly  essayed  opening  conversa- 
tion in  French  with  the  diplomatist.  Talleyrand 
wandered  off,  and,  meeting  Bemal  Osborne, 
referred  to  the  episcopal  remarks  on  interna- 
tional politics.  "His  lordship,"  he  said,  "dis- 
played a  courage  which  surprised  me,  even  in 
him,  by  delivering  some  half  a  dozen  words  on 
a  subject  about  which  he  knew  little  in  a  lan- 
guage of  which  he  knew  nothing."  Abraham 
Hay  ward,  however,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for 
this  story,  and  who  overheard  most  of  the  talk, 
said  that  the  Bishop  of  Exeter's  argument  turned 
upon  a  forgotten  point  in  the  negotiations  that 
created  the  Kingdom  of  Belgium^  was  expressed 
in  French,  if  not  highly  elegant  or  idiomatic 
yet  perfectly  intelligible,  and  was  admitted  by 
Talleyrand  himself  to  have  put  in  their  true  light 
and  perspective  some  details  of  the  transaction 
often  misrepresented,  forgotten,  or  ignored. 

Most  of  the  stories  about  the  Bishop  locally 
circulated  till  a  comparatively  recent  date  are 
apocryphal.  He  never  suffered,  as  it  was  once 
said  he  did,  any  of  his  name  or  blood  to  come 

43 


Great  Victorians 

to  want.  For  the  rest,  to  speak  once  more  from 
my  own  experiences,  very  early  as  these  were, 
I  can  distinctly  recall  being  taken  to  the  Exeter 
Palace.  One  side  of  the  library  was  lined  with 
bookshelves,  so  arranged  that  the  Bishop  could 
at  once  see  and  fetch  for  himself  any  volume 
he  wanted,  without  the  help  of  a  ladder  or  chair, 
by  standing  on  a  light  movable  little  platform, 
specially  made  for  the  purpose.  Opposite  the 
books,  on  the  other  side,  most  of  the  space  was 
taken  up  by  an  immense  looking-glass  ;  in  this 
the  Bishop  could  see  clearly  reflected  every 
feature  and  movement  of  his  visitors  ;  and  it 
was  in  a  convenient  position  for  himself  as 
regards  this  mirror  that  he  had  a  chair  placed 
for  Gorham,  the  newly  appointed  Vicar  of 
Brampford  Speke,  while,  taking  his  place  beside 
that  clergyman,  he  examined  him  as  to  his  views 
about  baptismal  regeneration.  This  article  of 
furniture  answered  other  purposes. 

His  impressive  demeanour,  well -moulded 
features,  and  especially  his  broad,  projecting 
forehead,  gave  Phillpotts  a  very  noticeable 
appearance.  Till  past  middle  age  he  had  an 
abundant  crop  of  black,  strong  hair,  bulging  out 
into  something  like  a  little  brush  at  the  back  of 
his  head.  In  these  personal  endowments  the 
Bishop  took  a  modest  pride.     Having  carefully 

44 


Mitre  and  Baton 

prepared  his  orations  at  his  table,  he  rehearsed 
them  aloud  before  the  looking-glass,  with  all  the 
action  and  gestures  that  were  to  adorn  and  em- 
phasize his  periods.  At  one  end  of  this  chamber 
I  was  placed  at  a  table  while  those  who  had 
brought  me  were  conversing  at  the  other  end  with 
our  host.  A  picture  album  had  been  placed 
within  my  reach  to  keep  me  quiet,  and  presently 
Henry  of  Exeter  brought  me  a  little  packet  of 
sugar -plums,  by  way  of  refreshment,  while  I 
looked  at  the  pictures.  Many  of  these  were 
portraits  of  celebrities  then  living,  whose  faces 
and  names  I  sometimes  recognized  from  having 
seen  at  home  water-colour  drawings  of  quadrilles 
in  which  they  figured.  Such  were  Lady  Jersey, 
her  daughter,  Lady  Clementina  Villiers,  Lord 
Lansdowne,  with  other  members  of  the  Bowood 
group,  including  Bernal  Osborne  and  Abraham 
Hayward,  whom  in  the  flesh  I  was  afterwards 
to  know  so  well,  Sir  Fitzroy  and  Lady  Kelly, 
Lady  Molesworth,  Lord  and  Lady  Lyndhurst, 
the  Bishop's  particular  lay  intimates,  Hudson 
Gurney,  and  a  friend  of  his  own  cloth  and 
rank,  the  Bishop  of  Chichester,  who  char- 
acterized, as  the  best  piece  of  episcopal  invec- 
tive he  had  ever  heard,  Phillpotts'  attack  upon 
the  Whig  Irish  Education  Bill  in  1834.  The 
collection,    I    afterwards   heard,    contained  most 

45 


Great  Victorians 

of  those  whom  the  Bishop  really  liked  to  know, 
including  also  a  well-known  Italian  of  quality, 
then  much  in  vogue^  Prince  Cimatelli ;  Phill- 
potts  had  first  met  him  as  an  honorary  member 
at  the  Athenaeum  in  1831.  That  was  the  second 
year,  the  first  being  1829,  in  which  the  Bishop 
bewailed  the  ruin  of  the  Constitution  in  the 
country.  Quoth  the  prelate,  "  It  is  a  sad  thing. 
Prince,  that  you  should  be  here  at  such  an  un- 
happy moment."  "  Bishop,"  came  the  reply, 
"  I  rejoice  that  I  have  seen  already  two  events 
in  England^  and  hope  soon  to  witness  a  third. 
I  have  watched  Catholic  Emancipation  becoming 
law,  followed  by  the  overthrow  of  the  Tories. 
I  now  hope  soon  to  see  the  passing  of  the 
Reform  Bill." 

The  late  Lord  Granville,  who  knew  his  Henry 
of  Exeter  by  heart,  described  to  me  his  attitude 
in  the  Upper  House,  at  two  different  periods 
of  his  life,  when  about  to  make  a  speech.  "  He 
seemed  not  so  much  to  sit  on  the  episcopal 
bench  as  to  crouch.  Suddenly  some  expression 
he  heard,  or  thought  that  came  into  his  mind, 
stung  him  like  an  insect  attacking  a  lion.  In 
a  moment  he  did  not  so  much  rise  to  address 
as  with  a  little  bounce  spring  at  his  prey.  All 
the  force  and  energy  of  his  being  were  com- 
pressed   into    that    movement.      This    was    the 

46 


Mitre  and  Baton 

Bishop  at  his  prime.  When  his  health  gave 
trouble,  or  he  felt  the  approach  of  age,  he  still 
crouched  with  the  same  vigilant,  keen  look,  but 
instead  of  the  elastic  leap  to  his  feet,  pulled 
himself   wearily   up." 

In  his  see  Henry  of  Exeter  faded  slowly  out. 
He  was  approaching  fourscore  and  ten  when  he 
left  his  palace  for  ever,  to  be  seen  for  the  future 
only  by  those  who,  walking  on  the  Torquay  sea- 
front,  met  a  bath -chair  slowly  drawn  along  that 
portion  of  it  forming  Babbacombe  Bay.  A  look 
inside  revealed  a  dark  and  dreadful  counten- 
ance set  in  a  wild  frown,  pale  knotted  hands 
clutching  at  both  sides  of  the  chair.  The  whole 
apparition  so  terrified  any  children  who  hap- 
pened to  behold  it  that  with  a  shriek  they 
hurried  off,  tearful  and  trembling,  as  at  the  sight 
of  a  Satanic  vision. 

Nor  was  Bishop  Phillpotts  the  only  type  of 
a  great  general  of  the  Church  Militant  supplied 
by  the  West  of  England  during  the  first  half  of 
the  Victorian  age.  Two  others  may  be  repre- 
sented here,  as  they  still  live  in  the  present 
writer's  mind.  One  of  these,  throughout  the 
whole  East  Brent  region,  used  to  be  as  well 
known  as  the  reservoir  created  or  cleared  iby 
him  for  the  health  and  comfort  of  his  village. 
The  Bishop  of  Exeter,  as  has  been  recalled,  in  his 

47 


Great  Victorians 

efforts  to  bring  back  doctrine  and  worship  to 
their  pre-Reformation  point,  found  his  most 
effective  agent  in  his  chaplain,  Freeman.  The 
Archdeacon  of  Taunton  received  effectual  help 
of  the  same  kind  from  one  of  the  clergy  within 
his  dominion,  a  greater  scholar  and  theologian 
than  himself,  M.  F.  Sadler,  Vicar  of  Bridgwater. 

Archdeacon  Denison  reserved  all  open  sym- 
pathy with  the  Ritualists  till,  in  1865,  a  corre- 
spondence  with  Archbishop  Longley  convinced 
him  that  under  existing  conditions  in  the  Church 
of  England  by  law  established  nothing  like  a 
spirit  of  cordial  unanimity  among  various  parties 
could  be  hoped  for.  The  attack  from  within  had 
already  begun ;  his  own  time  was  nearly  out. 
The  Archdeacon,  therefore,  saw  nothing  for  it 
but  that  the  schools  and  factions  should  fight  to 
a  finish.  The  wealth  chiefly  acquired  from  his 
early  immensely  valuable  pluralities  raised  Phill- 
potts  to  the  station  of  a  prince  of  the  Church. 
Archdeacon  Denison's  high  connections,  family 
wealth,  and  healthy  English  tastes  placed  him 
as  a  clergyman  among  squires.  They  also  made 
him  something  of  a  squire  among  clergymen, 
and  gave  him  social  pre-eminence  even  in  that 
part  of  Somerset  where  "  Squarsons  "  of  high 
degree  used  not  to  be  rarities. 

All  this  time  his  breeding,  tact,  and  manifest 

48 


Mitre  and  Baton 

honesty  preserved  all  his  personal  friends  in  the 
neighbourhood,  even  among  those  who  were 
farthest  removed  from  his  views.  To  the  end  he 
remained  a  Somerset  worthy,  as  Phillpotts  was  in 
his  way  a  Devonian  hero.  His  brother,  the  then 
Speaker,  happily  named  him  "St.  George  without 
the  drag -on."  The  best  stories  about  or  against 
him  were  those  told  by  himself  to  his  friends  in 
his  lifetime,  and  recorded,  no  doubt,  in  his  auto- 
biography. Such  were  his  experiences  with  the 
school  inspector,  as  detestable  in  his  sight  as 
the  conscience  clause  itself,  only  because  he  per- 
sonified the  principle  of  State  control.  When, 
therefore,  this  official  visited  the  East  Brent 
schools,  the  children  with  one  accord  began  to 
sing- 
Old  Daddy  Longlegs  wouldn't  say  his  prayers, 
Take  him  by  the  left  leg  and  throw  him  down  the  stairs. 

The  intruder  disappeared,  but  only  to  lunch  off 
cold  chicken  and  sherry  with  the  Archdeacon 
at  the  Vicarage. 

From  the  two  clerical  types  most  character- 
istic of  those  nineteenth -century  years  through 
which  they  lived,  one  naturally  passes  to  the 
great  Captain  already  seen  in  company  with  the 
great  Churchman.  Archdeacon  Denison  be- 
longed   by    residence    and    office    to    the    same 

49  D 


Great  Victorians 

county  as  that  containing  the  birthplace  of 
Bishop  Phillpotts,  and  producing  the  stock  from 
which  the  Duke  of  Wellington  sprang.  From 
the  lips  of  his  son  and  successor  came  to  .me 
the  highly  characteristic  sayings  of  the  great 
man  himself,  presently  to  be  given,  and,  so  far 
as  I  know,  for  the  first  time,  in  print.  The 
second  Duke  of  Wellington  never  talked  much 
about  his  father's  Somerset  connection  or  his 
other  West  of  England  associations,  some 
growing  out  of  his  office  as  Governor  of 
Plymouth  (1819-29).  That  reserve  always 
struck  me  as  due  to  the  neglect  by  its  inhabit- 
ants of  the  monument  to  the  hero  and  sage  who 
took  his  title  from  the  place.  This  obelisk^ 
erected  at  the  foot  of  the  Blackdown  Hills 
two  years  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  had 
fallen  lamentably  out  of  repair.  In  January 
1853  the  pillar  was  restored  on  th^  initiative  and 
through  the  combined  efforts  of  the  Slade  family 
at  Montys  Court  and  the  first  Duke's,  as  also 
the  second  Duke's,  personal  friend,  my  uncle. 
Since  then  the  second  Duke  complained  that 
it  was  once  more  in  danger  of  falling  to  pieces. 
"  The  Somersetites,"  he  said  to  me,  '*  have  a 
strange  way  of  honouring  my  father's  memory ; 
but  as  for  you,  only  your  uncle  saved  the  pillar 
from  collapsing  by  what  he  said  and  did  near 

50 


Mitre  and  Baton 

half  a  century  ago,  and  because  you  are  his 
nephew  I  am  glad  to  have  you  for  my  friend." 
The  speech  thus  referred  to  by  the  second 
Duke  attracted  much  attention,  not  only  on 
account  of  its  object,  but  of  the  terse,  classical 
diction,  which  caused  the  late  R.  C.  Jebb,  when 
Professor  of  Greek  at  Cambridge,  to  render  it 
himself  into  Greek  and  Latin,  and  to  set  a 
portion  of  it  for  translation  into  Greek  at  one 
of  the  examinations  he  held.  The  Wellington 
district  witnessed  in  the  eighteenth  century  the 
beginnings  of  the  great  fortunes  in  store,  for 
the    Duke's    ancestors  ^    settled    in    that    part   of 

'  A  footnote  rather  than  the  text  seems  suitable  for  summarizing 
the  chief  steps  in  the  advance  which  changed  the  Wesleys,  as  the 
name  was  then  written,  from  an  inconsiderable  family  in  Somerset 
to  one  of  territorial  status  in  Meath.  First  came  intermarriage 
with  the  Cowleys  or  Colleys,  beginning  their  Irish  wealth  and 
importance.  Subsequently  to  this  Lord  Maryborough,  afterwards 
Lord  Mornington,  while  still  a  young  midshipman,  received  the 
offer  of  a  valuable  Irish  property  from  a  distant  kinsman  of  the 
Poles,  on  condition  that  he  left  the  Navy  and  made  his  bene- 
factor's house  his  home.  But  at  the  time  of  this  offer  the 
outbreak  of  the  Seven  Years  War  saw  the  lucky  lad  on  active 
service  against  the  French.  He  therefore  refused  the  condition  ; 
like  his  relations,  he  supposed  nothing  more  would  be  heard  of 
the  good  fortune  he  had  so  narrowly  missed.  Presently,  however, 
the  old  gentleman  died,  declared  in  his  will  that  his  young  friend's 
conduct  only  increased  his  admiration,  and  left  him  a  large  slice, 
if  not  the  whole,  of  the  Pole  property.  Wellesley,  it  now  turned 
out,  was  the  primitive  and  correct  patronymic.  Such  discoveries, 
it  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  have  not  been  uncommon  with 

51 


Great  Victorians 

the  county  from  early  times.  Hartrow  Manor 
during  the  fifties  was  visited  by  many  celebri- 
ties, amongst  them  the  great  Sir  Robert  Peel 
and  Lord  Lyndhurst.  Kilve  Court,  some  way 
outside  the  Wellington  region,  belonged,  during 
a  great  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  to  the 
great  Duke's  Waterloo  comrade,  Colonel  Francis 
Luttrell,!  constantly  in  those  days  the  great 
man's  host.  Here,  in  my  very  earliest  days, 
I  first  set  eyes  upon  the  conqueror  of 
Napoleon.  A  school  treat  was  being  given  in 
the    grounds.      The    great    man    now    and    then 

Somerset  houses,  as  of  course  with  a  good  many  others.  The  latest 
Somerset  instance  is  perhaps  that  of  the  much  respected  Somerset 
squire  who  only  reverted  to  the  ancient  and  demonstrably  correct 
orthography  when  he  wrote  Everard  in  place  of  the  Evered  so 
long  and  agreeably  connected  with  Hill  House,  near  Bridgwater, 
and  Stone  Lodge  close  to  Dulverton.  The  first  Lord  Mornington 
married  the  first  Viscount  Dungannon's  daughter,  thus  connecting 
the  Wellesleys  with  the  Downshire,  Salisbury,  and  Talbot  families. 
The  distinction  won  by  her  two  sons,  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and 
the  Marquis  Wellesley,  made  this  highly  endowed  woman,  when 
incessantly  cheered  by  the  crowd  on  driving  to  Westminster, 
exclaim  to  her  companion.  Lord  Cowley,  "So  much  for  the 
honour  of  the  mother  of  the  Gracchi ! " 

^  Francis  Fownes  Luttrell,  third  son  of  John  Luttrell  of 
Dunster  Castle,  M.P.  for  Minehead,  by  Mary,  eldest  daughter 
of  Francis  Drewe,  Grange,  Devon,  was  Lieutenant-Captain  in  the 
I  St  Foot  Guards  at  Waterloo  ;  he  left  the  service  1825,  after  being 
Lieutenant-Colonel  in  the  Grenadiers,  having  married  his  cousin, 
Miss  Drewe,  and  become  owner  not  only  of  Kilve  Court  but  of 
Wootton  in  the  same  county.  At  Kilve  he  lived  till  his  death 
in  1862. 

52 


Mitre  and   Baton 

walked  a  little  on  the  lawn,  but  for  the  most 
part  sat  on  a  chair  placed  for  him  on  a  gravel 
path,  near  the  front  door.  The  feature  that  im- 
pressed me  even  more  than  the  historic  aquiline 
nose  was  the  beautiful,  very  round,  very  large 
blue  eyes,  which  seemed  to  take  in  everything 
at  a  glance.  Before  the  party  broke  up  a 
clerical  voice  gave  out  something  between  a 
song  and  a  hymn  with  the  refrain- 
God  bless  the  squire  and  all  his  rich  relations, 
And  keep  us  poor  people  in  our  proper  stations.- 

"  By    all    means,"    grimly   murmured   the   Duke 
as  a  chorus  solo,  "  if  it  can  be  done." 

Other  country  houses  in  the  north  and  east 
as  well  as  west  contain  records  of  ducal  visits 
paid  about  the  same  time  as  those  to  Sir  Walter 
Scott  at  Abbotsford  with  Henry  of  Exeter  for 
fellow-guest.  The  earliest  and  most  eventful  of 
these  occasions  had  been  the  stay  at  Ravens- 
worth  Castle  in  1827,  the  date  at  which  Gode- 
ricli's  growing  inability  to  hold  office  as 
Canning's  successor  made  it  certain  that  the 
Duke  would  soon  be  at  the  head  of  affairs  again. 
Roman  Catholic  Emancipation  had,  of  course, 
been  long  in  the  air ;  the  Duke  himself  was 
beginning  to  think  it  would  have  been  better 
to   have   given   Canning   a  free  hand   and  have 

53 


Great  Victorians 

done  with  the  matter  than  to  have  hunted  him 
out  of  office  and  of  Hfe  for  refusing  to  give  it 
up  ;  for  at  Ravensworth  he  told  his  host  and 
Sir  Walter  Scott  that  the  odiitni  theologicum, 
pointing  to  Phillpotts,  then  only  a  pamphleteer- 
ing parson,  might  put  too  great  a  strain  even 
on  Toryism.  About  the  same  time  the  Duke, 
going  still  farther  north,  repeated  the  visit  to 
Reay,  on  which  he  had  been  accompanied  by 
Sir  Walter  Scott  in  1807,  and  again  in  18 14. 
At  Lord  Reay's  an  excursion  was  made  to  the 
cave  of  Uamh  Smowe.  Here  one  of  the  party 
narrowly  escaped  drowning  by  a  fall  into  the 
water,  but  presently  reappeared,  swimming 
strongly,  and  causing  Scott  or  Lockhart  to 
repeat,  for  the  Duke's  amusement,  a  quatrain 
in  a  then  popular  song— 

When  Bibo  thought  fit  from  this  world  to  retreat, 
As  full  of  champagne  as  an  egg's  full  of  meat, 
He  waked  in  the  boat,  and  to  Charon  he  said, 
"  Come  row  me  now  back,  for  I  am  not  yet  dead." 

West  or  east,  south  or  north,  in  country  or 
town,  the  polite  world  throughout  the  fifties, 
like,  for  that  matter,  the  entire  country,  indeed 
the  whole  Western  world,  thought  of  little  but 
how  personally  to  honour  the  deliverer  and,  as 
he  next  became,  the  sage  of  Europe. 

54 


Mitre  and  Baton 

In  and  about  Grosvenor  Square  folding  doors 
were  opened^  curtains  and  footlights  arranged  ; 
the  whole  floor  suddenly  changed  itself  into  a 
theatre  in  order  that  the  hero  of  Waterloo  might 
see  the  young  people  of  the  house  and  their 
friends  enact  scenes  from  his  favourite  French 
plays.  The  performance  was  sometimes  varied 
by  some  young  lady  with  a  good  voice  obliging 
with  a  song. 

In  no  vocalist  did  the  Duke  take  such  delight 
as  in  Miss  Jervis  ;  she  was  Lord  St.  Vincent's 
daughter,  always  asked  wherever  the  Duke  went, 
and  seated,  as  a  matter  of  course,  next  to  him 
at  table.  Such  little  displays  of  grandpaternal 
gallantry  and  homage  were  seen  nowhere  more 
prettily  than  at  his  favourite  home -counties 
resort,  Hatfield,  during  the  second  Marquis  of 
Salisbury's  time.  On  the  Kilve  Court  lawn  the 
children,  whose  looks  betrayed  to  the  old  warrior 
the  expectation  of  something,  were  more  than 
satisfied  when  the  venerable  hand,  slowly  enter- 
ing a  pocket,  brought  from  it  a  handful  of 
coppers  to  be  scrambled  for.  Any  reader  of 
these  lines  who  can  recall  the  incident  will  re- 
member that  a  minute  or  two  afterwards  a 
small  girl,  picking  up  a  copper,  dropped  its 
donor  a  low  curtsy,  so  much  approved  by  him 
as  to  secure  the  child  a  sixpenny  or  fourpenny 

55 


Great  Victorians 

bit.  The  coin  might  have  been  seen  in  a 
Quantock  cottage,  preserved  as  an  heirloom  long 
after  its  giver,  its  first  possessor,  and  all  per- 
sonally concerned  with  the  story  had  passed 
away.  On  higher  levels  it  sometimes  ran  to 
sovereigns  and  half-crowns.  Among  the  Hat- 
field curios  there  might  once  be  seen  a  gold  or 
a  silver  piece  bestowed,  in  succession  to  the 
christening  cup,  upon  his  godson  and  namesake, 
who  just  forty  years  later  was  to  become  Prime 
Minister.  So,  at  least,  ran  the  accepted  Hert- 
fordshire version  of  the  facts  ;  it  derived  further 
possibility  from  the  Duke's  devotion  to  the  late 
Lord  Salisbury's  second  and  favourite  sister. 
Lady  Blanche  Cecil,  his  interest  in  her  marriage 
to  James  Maitland  Balfour,  of  Whittingehame, 
and  his  declared  wish  to  become  the  first  child's 
sponsor . 

After  he  laid  down  the  sword,  "  the  Duke  for 
thirty  years  more  was  the  sage  of  Europe  ;  and 
in  every  civil  and  political  effort  he  took  a  part 
which  the  wisest  had  wished  for,  but  which  none 
save  he  bore  the  power  to  execute— the  over- 
coming of  faction,  which  some  call  party,  and 
the  setting  at  naught  his  formerly  expressed 
opinions,  even  for  a  time  his  own  reputation, 
that  he  might  himself  consult  the  necessity  of 
his  Sovereign  as  well  as  promote  his  honour  and 

56 


Mitre  and   Baton 

that  of  his  country."  ^  At  the  beginning  of  my 
Oxford  days  there  were  still  living  many  who 
related  to  me  how  the  Duke,  then  Chancellor 
of  the  University,  had  saved  the  situation  just 
three  decades  ago,  when  the  consort  of  William 
IV  visited  the  place.  Dean  Gaisford  then  ruled 
Christ  Church,  and  showed  no  disposition  to 
incur  inconvenience  for  the  Royal  lady's  sake. 
He  had  bluntly  written  to  the  Court  official. 
Lord  Howe,  that  there  were  no  suitable  rooms 
vacant  in  the  house.  If,  however,  her  Majesty 
would  wait,  she  should  be  received  at  the 
Deanery,  and  her  suite  should  be  put  up 
at  some  of  the  canons'  residences.  Queen 
Adelaide  could  not  or  would  not  postpone 
her  arrival.  Something  like  a  scandal  arose 
when  she  descended  with  those  about  her 
at  the  Angel  Inn — a  site  now  covered  by  the 
new  Examination  Schools.  The  Duke's  quick 
eye,  however,  had  seen  his  opportunity.  Before, 
as  it  might  have  been  thought,  the  incident  got 
wind,  he  was  on  the  spot,  lionizing  the  Queen 
everywhere,  seeing  that  the  illuminations, 
dinners,  and  so  forth,  went  off  without  any 
hitch.  As  a  consequence  the  Queen  received 
real  delight  from  her  reception,  and  when 
leaving   for    London   let    it   be   known   that   she 

^  From  Sherborne  Journal^  January  20,  1853. 
57 


Great  Victorians 

had  never  enjoyed  anything  more  in  her  hfe. 
With  equal  dexterity,  so  I  used  to  hear  from 
the  academic  veterans  who  survived  till  the 
beginning  of  my  Oxford  days,  in  1834  the  Duke 
had  recognized  the  then  obscure  germ  of 
University  Liberalism  by  writing  to  the  heads 
of  houses,  frankly  confessing  that  he  and  his 
friends  found  great  difficulty  as  regards  the  sig- 
nature of  the  Thirty -nine  Articles  by  matricu- 
lating undergraduates.  He  therefore  expressed 
a  hope  that  Convocation  might  see  its  way 
to  sanction  the  repeal  of  subscription— though 
vainly,  as  it  turned  out,  because  a  motion  to  that 
effect  failed  immediately  afterwards  by  an  im- 
mense majority.  The  Duke's  attitude  in  this 
matter,  as  in  that  of  Catholic  Emancipation, 
recalled  to  not  a  few  the  words  quoted  above 
from  a  speech  much  talked  of  at  the  time  of 
restoring   the    Blackdown   obelisk. 

Before  passing  to  certain  Wellingtoniana 
coming  to  me  from  the  friends  or  relations  who 
saw  much  of  the  Duke  at  their  houses  or  his  own, 
I  may  give  the  substance  of  a  home  letter  from 
one  of  these,  who  visited  the  place  where  the 
great  battle  was  fought  only  a  month  or  two 
afterwards.  The  two  armies  met  in  a  large 
open  rye -field.  Throughout  the  summer  and  the 
early   autumn    afterwards    the   whole    plain    had 

58 


Mitre  and  Baton 

been  reaped,  and  was  covered  with  straw,  while 
the  atmosphere  remained  pestilential  in  the  ex- 
treme. All  the  other  relics  of  the  combat  were 
more  than  a  hurfdred  pieces  of  French  cannon 
and  a  heap  of  soldiers'  caps  that  the  inhabitants 
had  not  thought  worth  the  trouble  of  removing. 
This  though  during  the  night  of  June  i  8th  they 
had  stripped  many  English  bodies  of  their 
clothes.  As  regards  the  never-to-be-forgotten 
Duchess  of  Richmond's  ball  on  the  evening 
before,  the  Duke  was  the  first  British  officer 
in  the  room  to  hear  of  Bonaparte's  being  within 
fifteen  miles  of  Brussels.  Contrary,  it  seems, 
to  the  generally  received  account,  **  he  whis- 
pered hurriedly  to  "  no  one,  said  not  a  word,  put 
the  dispatch  in  his  pocket,  disappeared  for  a 
couple  of  hours  ;  during  that  absence  he  drew 
up  on  paper  all  his  dispositions.  He  then  re- 
entered the  room  and  danced  all  night.  The 
one  precedent  for  this  was  proudly  found  by 
the  present  writer's  West  of  England  compatriots 
in  Sir  Francis  Drake's  treatment  of  the  tidings 
that  the  Armada  had  been  sighted :  "  Plenty 
of  time  to  finish  our  game  of  bowls  first  and 
fight  the  Spaniards  afterwards."  But  during  the 
fray  itself,  did  Drake  supply  any  parallel  for 
that  amazing  calmness  of  the  Duke,  who,  on 
the   French    coming    up   to    attack    the    English 

59 


Great  Victorians 

squares,  actually  laughed?  Such  were  the  great 
Captain's  qualities,  which  were  worth  more  than 
whole  battalions  to  his  army,  and  that,  on  the 
great  day  now  recalled,  more  tllan  once  snatched 
victory  out  of  the  jaws  of  defeat.  "  It  was 
twenty  to  one  we  lost  the  battle,  sim'ply  because 
those  were  the  odds  in  favour  of  the  Duke  being 
killed."  So  ran  the  experts'  verdict,  brought 
back  by  travelling  experts  from  their  post- 
Waterloo  tour,  and  handed  down  to  one's  own 
times.  The  fear  had  been,  not  that  the  enemy's 
horse  or  foot  could  have  broken  the  English 
squares,  but  that  the  250  French  cannons  would 
annihilate  the  whole  British  force,  the  Duke 
himself  included.  There  had  gone  about  a 
report  that  in  those  squares  Wellington  placed 
himself  for  safety.  He  did  nothing  of  the  kind. 
When  it  was  all  over  he  said,  "  If  the  finger  of 
God  was  on  any  man,  it  was  on  me  that  day." 
At  the  hottest  points  of  the  battle  he  exposed 
himself  with  systematic  coolness  to  encourage 
his  soldiers.  When  asked  about  the  conduct 
of  our  allies,  he  parried  the  question  much  in 
the  same  way  as  he  did  a  certain  well-known 
appeal  of  the  Prince  Regent  about  his  imag- 
inary distinction  at  Waterloo  :  "  You  know, 
Arthur,  I  was  there,  don't  you?"  "I  have 
repeatedly     heard     your     Royal     Highness     say 

60 


Mitre  and   Baton 

so."  So,  as  regards  the  non-British  troops 
engaged.  "  I  have  heard,"  responded  the 
ducal  oracle,  *'  that  the  Dutch  and  others 
ran  away  in  part  of  the  line  and  behaved 
well  elsewhere,  also,  had  we  been  worsted, 
Belgians,  Brunswickers,  and  the  rest  would  have 
turned  against  us.  The  truth,  however,  is,  when 
there  is  fighting  for  a  mile  at  the  same  time, 
no  individual  engaged  knows  more  than  those 
in  England  of  what  is  passing  more  than  a 
hundred  yards  to  his  right  or  left."  "  The 
Duke,"  I  remember  hearing  it  said  by  one  who 
had  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  him  at  Walmer, 
"  believes,  like  Napoleon,  in  his  star,  and  in  the 
midst  of  carrying  his  life  in  his  hands  wrote 
to  me  to  inquire  whether  he  could  rent 
*  Donnington,'  Lord  Moira*s  Leicestershire 
place,    for    the    next    hunting    season." 

Cruda  deo  virldisque  senectus.  The  weak- 
ness of  age  showed  itself  in  the  rising  and  falling 
of  the  jaw  according  to  the  movements  of  his 
horse  when,  during  his  Walmer  period,  he  rode 
"  Copenhagen  "  with  the  harriers  or  cantered 
elsewhere  over  the  turf.  But  persons  who  were 
much  about  the  Duke  in  those  days,  as  well  as 
his  own  son,  have  assured  me  he  showed  scarcely 
any  symptoms  of  physical  decline  till  he  had 
gone  more  than  half-way  through  the  seventies. 

6i 


Great  Victorians 

The  kindest  and  best  of  my  old  friends,  who 
wrote  "  Eothen "  and  *'  The  Invasion  of  the 
Crimea,"  may  not  have  been  a  scientific  critic 
of  tactics  and  strategy,  after  the  new  mihtary 
pattern  at  the  Universities  to-day,  but  he  was 
a  close  and  accurate  observer ;  he  had  not  gone 
through  the  labour  of  collecting  materials  on 
the  spot  for  his  great  book  without  gathering 
a  rudimentary  acquaintance  with  the  art  of  war. 
In  the  same  way  Abraham  Hay  ward's  sharp 
wit,  strong  brain,  ubiquitous  experience,  and 
sense  of  responsibility  in  his  most  casual  utter- 
ances made  his  opinion  at  least  worth  some- 
thing on  other  subjects  than  letters  and  politics. 
Both  these  men  habitually  saw  the  Duke  in 
1848,  the  year  of  the  Chartist  outbreak.  His 
mind,  they  agreed,  had  never  been  more  vigor- 
ous and  alert.  His  scheme  for  the  defence  of 
London  did  not,  in  completeness,  wisdom,  and 
rapidity,  fall  below  the  standard  of  his  Penin- 
sular or  Belgian  strategy.  To  such  effect  King- 
lake  expressed  himself  when  dining  at  my  house 
on  one  occasion,  the  two  other  guests  being 
Hayward  and  the  late  Sir  Henry  Brackenbury ; 
to  the  last  of  these  he  appealed  for  correction 
or  confirmation  of  his  views.  "  I  entirely,"  said 
Brackenbury,  "  agree  with  Mr.  Kinglake  that 
the  defence  of  London  should  be  read  as  care- 

62 


Mitre  and  Baton 

fully  by  military  students  as  any  other  passages 
of  Wellingtonian  strategy." 

For  these  reasons  it  may  be  worth  while  to 
give  here  an  idea  of  the  Duke's  dispositions, 
such  as  I  owe  to  the  combined  good  offices  of 
Brackenbury  and  Kinglake.  On  April  9,  1848, 
the  Ministers  expected  an  immediate  attack  on 
the  Government  offices.  The  Duke  therefore 
decided  that  the  Thames  bridges  must  be  occu- 
pied, and  the  mob  kept  to  Southwark  and 
Lambeth.  Suddenly  the  Duke  heard  Feargus 
O'Connor  might  choose  Primrose  Hill  for  his 
battleground,  but  such  a  possibility  had  been 
reckoned  with  by  the  Duke,  who,  it  should  be 
added,  carried  everything  through  without  mili- 
tary display.  He  and  his  staff  went  about 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  capital 
in  plain  clothes  ;  while,  in  Kinglake's  character- 
istic phrasing,  his  aides-de-camp  were  disguised 
as  common-looking  fellows  that  they  might  pass 
in  the  streets  without  attracting  attention,  and 
this  though  in  ordinary  times  the  Duke  insisted 
on  punctilio  in  externals  and  in  routine  gener- 
ally. Thus  when  Prime  Minister  he  always 
reached  his  official  residence  early,  hung  up  his 
greatcoat  and  hat  before  travelling  round  the 
expanse  of  tables  for  the  various  letters  or 
boxes,    and    so    mastered   the    papers    submitted 

63 


Great  Victorians 

for  his  sanction.  Incidents  and  traits  of  this 
kind  could  not,  for  chronological  reasons,  form 
part  of  the  writer's  own  experience.  They  were, 
however,  in  every  case  those  which  the  sight 
or  name  of  the  Duke  called  up  to  the  mind  of 
the  best  placed  and  most  exactly  observant  of 
his  contemporaries . 

Most  of  the  anecdotes  in  which  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  figured  have  long  been  public  pro- 
perty. His  son  once  helped  me  to  separate  the 
wheat  from  the  chaff  with  the  following  results. 
Two  at  least  of  the  most  characteristic  were 
rather  against  the  Strathfieldsaye  host  of  my 
own  day.  He,  when  in  the  Rifles,  had 
been  quartered  at  Walmer  when  his  father,  as 
Warden  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  was  in  residence. 
Why,  he  wanted  to  know,  had  he  not  been 
included  in  a  dinner  invitation  to  his  regiment? 
The  answer  promptly  came:  "  E.-M.  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  begs  to  inform  the  Marquis  of 
Douro  that  he  is  the  only  officer  who  has  not 
left  his  card  at  Walmer  Castle."  With  his 
second  son  he  dealt  in  the  same  spirit  on  a  dun- 
ning letter  from  tradesmen  who  had  a  long- 
standing bill  against  the  young  man.  "  F.-M. 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  begs  to  inform  Messrs. 
Brown,  Jones,  &  Robinson  that  he  is  not  Lord 
Charles  Wellesley."     The  second  Duke  also  once 

64 


Mitre  and  Baton 

pointed  out  to  me  in  the  little  Strathfieldsaye 
park  the  exact  spot  on  which  his  father  dropped 
his  stick,  and,  to  the  little  boy  who  picked  it 
up,  used  what  had  become  with  him  a  stereo- 
typed phrase,  "  Can't  you  please  to  mind  your 
own  business  ?  "  During  the  Duke's  Premiership 
a  notoriously  stupid  Earl  wanted  the  Garter. 
"  Why  not,"  suggested  the  King,  **  give  him  the 
Thistle?"  then,  as  it  chanced,  vacant.  **  I  am 
afraid,  your  Majesty,  he  would  think  we  expected 
him  to  eat  it." 

In  1842  died  at  Kingston  House,  Bromp- 
ton,  the  most  celebrated  of  his  brothers.  Lord 
Wellesley.  A  delay  of  an  hour  took  place  at 
the  funeral.  "  It  is  very  inconvenient,"  said  the 
Duke  ;  "we  might  have  been  doing  something 
else."  Another  brother  had  departed  a  little 
earlier.  A  lady  sent  an  anxious  inquiry  after 
his  Grace's  health.  "There  must  be  some  mis- 
take," was  the  acknowledgment  of  the  friendly 
solicitude  ;  "  tell  her  it  is  Lord  Cowley  who  is 
dead.  I  am  very  well."  He  had  no  liking  for 
Lord  Ellenborough .  The  ex-Govemor-General 
came  back  to  England  with  some  remarkable 
stories  of  sunstroke ;  about  these,  told  at  Sir 
Robert  Peel's  dinner-table,  the  Duke  made  no 
remark,  though  Sir  Robert's  face  wore  an  ex- 
pression of  incredulity.     Appealed  to  by  Ellen- 

65  E 


Great  Victorians 

borough,  the  Duke  muttered,  **  All  I  can  say  is 
that  in  some  parts  of  India  it  is  sometimes  very- 
hot. "  False  humility,  he  let  it  be  seen,  was 
not  one  of  his  failings.  A  propos  of  some 
startling  event  which  had  just  happened,  he 
said  to  his  old,  really  esteemed  friend,  Lady 
Wilton,  '*  That  is  the  case,  ma'am,  according  to 
my  understanding,  and"  (slapping;  his  knee) 
"no  one   ever  had  a   better." 

*'  I  should  like  to  see  the  fellow  unroll  it." 
So  said  the  host  to  an  Apsley  House  dinner 
guest,  the  Russian  diplomatist.  Count  Orloff. 
This  intimate  friend  of  the  Emperor  Nicholas 
had  just  exhibited  the  strength  of  his  hand  by 
crushing  up  as  if  it  were  paper  an  unusually 
heavy  silver  plate.  The  strong  man  accepted 
his  host's  challenge,  did  as  he  was  dared  to 
do,  but  in  doing  it  almost  tore  his  fingers  to 
pieces . 

How  the  great  Duke  could  deal  with  what 
he  considered  epistolary  impertinence  has  been 
shown  above.  His  son  inherited  the  same 
faculty.  On  his  father's  death  he  received  a 
letter  from  some  lady,  offering  to  sell  for  a  high 
price  some  family  papers  of  the  Wellesley  family 
of  which  she  had  contrived  to  get  hold.  He 
endorsed  this  attempt  at  blackmail  with  the 
words^  "  I   am  telling  her  you  may  like  to  buy 

66 


Mitre  and  Baton 

them,"  and  sent  the  letter  to  Lord  Houghton  as 
a  collector  of  curiosities.  The  second  Duke*s 
personal  likeness  to  his  father  was  of  the  same 
kind  as  that  of  Sir  Thomas  Gladstone  to  his 
brother,  the  Prime  Minister.  The  features  of 
the  two  showed  a  general  but  definite  resem- 
blance. The  mouth,  however,  and  the  jaw  of 
the  second  Duke  of  Wellington,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  second  Gladstone  baronet,  lacked  the 
signs  of  decision  and  strength  distinguishing 
the  same  features  in  the  more  famous  bearers 
of  the  same  name.  The  last  owner  of  Strath - 
fieldsaye  combined  some  antiquity  rather  than 
eccentricity  of  manner  with  a  shrewdness  not 
imworthy  of  his  sire,  as  well  as  with  his  father's 
capacity  for  sharp  and  sometimes  sarcastic  say- 
ings. No  one  understood  him  better  than  Lady 
Dorothy  Nevill,  together  with  her  son  and 
daughter  the  most  frequent  and  most  warmly 
welcomed  of  his  guests,  which  at  one  time  or 
another  included  most  of  those,  whatever  their 
calling  or  degree,  chiefly  in  social  evidence. 
The  Duke's  refusal  to  take  his  name  off  the 
Carlton  for  his  party  independence — *'  I  shall  do 
no  such  folly,  for  the  position  of  the  place  suits 
me  " — and  his  way  of  speeding  the  departures 
as  well  as  welcoming  the  arrivals  among  his 
visitors  were  cases  in  point.     Henry  Irving,  the 

6; 


Great  Victorians 

actor,  had  been  induced  by  Lady  Dorothy  to 
accept  an  invitation  on  condition  of  returning 
to  London  the  next  day  after  an  early  lunch. 
For  this  meal  Irving  suggested  1.30  p.m.  as 
a  suitable  hour,  so  that  he  might  catch  the  train 
leaving  Mortimer  Station  some  time  after  two. 
"The  day,"  said  the  Duke,  "is  hot,  the  roads 
are  not  too  good,  the  horses  are  not  yours ; 
luncheon  will  be  ready  at  one."  Billy  Russell, 
the  famous  war  correspondent,  always  found  a 
second  home  at  Strathfieldsaye .  Here  he  once 
complained  to  the  Duke  of  some  family  vexa- 
tions. "  My  dear  Billy,"  was  the  expostulating 
comment,  "  I  am  sorry  to  see  you  are  not  yet 
a  man  of  the  world.  Look  at  me  !  I  am  old, 
I  am  deaf,  I  am  blind,  I  owe  thousands  to  my 
bankers,  all  my  farms  are  imlet,  the  only  man 
in  whom  I  am  interested  has  just  married  the 
least  desirable  of  all  living  women,  and  yet  I 
am  happy."  During  tjhe  early  eighties  he  re- 
ceived civic  honour,  bestowed  on  his  father  in 
1 8 1 4 .  Before  being  gazetted  to  the  Middlesex 
Lord  Lieutenancy  he  appeared  one  morning  at 
the  breakfast -table  with  a  particularly  knowing 
smile  on  his  astute  old  face,  and  with  two  pieces 
of  notepaper  in  his  hand— one  a  request  from 
a  local  Sawbones,  with  no  shadow  of  claim  upon 
him,  for  recommendation  to,  as  he  had  heard, 

68 


Mitre  and  Baton 

a  vacant  coronership,  the  other  the  reply  he  had 
composed  while    dressing.      It   ran   as   follows : 

**  Dear ,  Your  clock  goes  a  little  too  fast. 

Coroner  Watkins  is  in  perfect  health,  and  I  am 
not  Lord  Lieutenant."  This  led  the  talk  to 
members  of  Watkins*s  profession  generally. 
**  Whatever  sins,"  said  the  Duke,  **  I  may  have 
committed,  I  have  never  recommended  any  one 
a  doctor  or  a  wife." 

About  the  time  now  looked  back  upon  the 
Duke  had  among  his  guests  an  elderly  young 
gentleman  of  the  Press  with  a  passion  for 
talking  about  himself,  his  historic  friends  and 
acquaintances  during  the  Franco-Prussian  War. 
**  This  little  thing,"  he  said,  showing  a  ring  or 
taking  out  a  cigar-case,  "  was  given  me  by 
Bismarck."  "Then,"  said  the  host,  "he  is  a 
greater  rogue  than  I  thought,  for  you  told  us 
yesterday  that  it  came  from  Gambetta,  and 
Bismarck,  of  course,  must  have  stolen  it  from 
him."  Another  little  reminiscence  in  a  similar 
vein  not  only  illustrates  the  Duke's  formidable 
sharpness,  but  suggests  that  he  had  read  a  good 
deal  more  than  he  was  generally  supposed  to 
have  done.  Another  of  his  guests  had  recounted 
how,  while  yachting  off  the  west  coast  of 
Ireland,  he  had  heard  the  officiating  clergyman 
pray  for   the  sea-girt  inhabitants  of  Achill  and 

69 


Great  Victorians 

Clare.  The  only  notice  taken  by  the  master  of 
the  house  was,  '*  You  heard  nothing  of  the  sort, 
and  are  stealing  from  Lockhart,  as  I  will  show." 
He  left  the  room  for  a  moment,  returned  with 
Sir  Walter  Scott's  Life  by  his  son-in-law,  opened 
the  seventh  volume  at  page  69,  and  read  the 
prayer  of  the  minister  of  the  Cumbrays,  two 
miserable  islands  in  the  mouth  of  the  Clyde : 
"  O  Lord,  bless  and  be  gracious  to  the  greater 
and  the  lesser  Cumbrays,  and  in  Thy  mercy  do 
not  forget  the  adjacent  islands  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland."  On  another  occasion  some  one 
had  boasted  his  descent  from  an  eighteenth- 
century  Earl  whose  family  name  happened  to 
be  his  own,  the  title  being  long  extinct.  **  As 
for  your   story,"   commented  the   Duke,   **  there 

is  this  much  to  be  said.     Lord at  last  sank 

into  absolute  idiocy,  but  as  he  died  without  issue 
your  pedigree  does  not  quite  fit  the  facts." 

The  great  country  friend  alike  of  the  first 
and  the  second  Dukes  of  Wellington  was  their 
neighbour,  the  Winchfield  clergyman  already 
mentioned  as  honoured  by  the  original  wearer 
of  the  peerage  with  the  account  of  his  visit  to 
Exeter  Cathedral.  His  novel,  "The  Subaltern," 
had  appeared  in  1825,  and  gave  what  the  great 
man  called  the  best  account  of  the  famous  battle 
§ver  written,  for  the  Chaplain -General  had  been 

79 


Mitre  and  Baton 

in  it  as  a  combatant  officer  before  taking  Orders. 
Mr.  Gleig  outlived  the  second  Duke  by  four 
years,  soldierly  rather  than  clerical,  except  for 
the  white  choker,  in  his  appearance  to  the  last, 
and  kindly  giving  the  present  writer  many 
opportunities  of  direct  communication  with  him. 
From  Mr.  Gleig,  and  not  from  his  own  father, 
the  second  Duke  had  the  account  of  the  great 
sailor  and  the  great  soldier  seeing  each  other 
for  the  first  time,  not,  as  was  often  said,  at 
White's  Club  or  on  any  social  occasion,  but  at 
the  Prime  Minister's  in  Downing  Street.  Here 
they  had  happened  to  call  on  the  same  morning. 
After  leaving  the  premises  Nelson  said  to  a 
friend,  *'  I  have  just  passed  on  the  stairs  a 
young  man  about  whom,  if  I  mistake  not,  a 
good  deal  will  soon  be  heard."  "  His  Grace 
and  the  Admiral,"  continued  the  second  Duke, 
"had  this  in  common.  They  were  both  the 
greatest  masters  of  their  crafts  that  ever  lived. 
He  who  won  Waterloo  and  he  who  died 
gloriously  at  Trafalgar  knew  practically  every 
detail  in  every  department  of  their  work. 
Neither  Napoleon  nor  any  of  his  admirals  or 
colonels  had  the  same  acquaintance  with  every 
part  of  machinery  to  be  set  in  motion  on  land 
or  water."  That  estimate  endorsed  an  opinion 
expressed  about  himself,  his  victories,  and  their 

71 


Great  Victorians 

causes,  by  the  great  Duke  himself  many  years 
earlier.  **  Mass^na,"  he  had  answered  to  a 
question  about  the  leaders  he  had  overcome, 
"was  by  far  the  greatest  general  against  me. 
When  he  was  there  I  could  neither  eat,  drink, 
nor  sleep.  I  never  knew  a  moment's  respite 
from  anxiety."  For  the  littleness  known  as 
"  crabbing "  the  hero  always  had  the  greatest 
contempt.  **  Are  not,"  asked  of  him  George  IV, 
"the  British  cavalry  the  finest  in  the  world?" 
The  answer  was,  "  The  French  are  very  good, 
sir."  "But  ours,"  repeated  the  monarch,  "are 
better."  Again  came  the  same  response,  "The 
French  are  very  good,  sir."  "This  modesty  of 
greatness,"  said  Mr.  Gleig,  "peeped  out  quietly 
in  many  unrecorded  little  ways.  For  instance, 
he  once  met  at  my  house  a  young  lady  )who 
did  not  know  him  by  sight,  and  to  whom  he 
talked  in  the  paternal  way  that  so  well  became 
him.  She  talked  about  going  to  see  a  model 
of  the  Waterloo  battle,  then  on  view  at  Win- 
chester. '  By  all  means,'  said  the  Duke,  '  do 
so.  It  is  a  very  exact  representation,  both  of 
the  place  and  fighting,  to  my  certain  knowledge, 
for  I  was  there  myself.'  "  The  old  clergyman, 
the  junior  by  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
of  his  famous  friend,  correctly  called  him  the 
"  soldier  of  all  work,"  quick  to  detect  any  error 

72 


Mitre  and  Baton 

in    performance,    from    the    shape    of    a    camp- 
kettle  to  the  plan  of  a  pitched  battle. 

All  the  present  writer's  Wellington  associa- 
tions are  connected  with  Somerset,  and  really 
gather  themselves  around  the  pillar  on  the 
Blackdown  Hills.  In  this  part  he  was  idolized 
as  a  local  worthy,  whose  homely  wit  hdd  speci- 
mens preserved  of  it  beneath  the  humblest  roof, 
sparing,  as  he  did,  himself  much  less  than  he 
spared  others.  Of  his  own  portraits  he  made 
excellent  fun.  "They  have  painted  me,"  he 
said,  "  in  every  possible  attitude  except  stand- 
ing on  my  head."  The  only  picture  he  ever 
commissioned  was  a  large  one  of  Waterloo  by 
Allan.  On  calling,  as  desired,  for  payment  |at 
Apsley  House,  the  artist  foimd  the  Duke  count- 
ing out  the  money  in  notes.  "Perhaps,"  the 
said,  "it  would  save  time  to  give  a  cheque." 
"Do  you  suppose,"  came  the  retort,  "  I  would 
let  them  know  at  Coutts'  what  a  fool  I  have 
been?  "  Throughout  the  west  the  Duke's  muni- 
ficence was  known  to  equal  his  modesty.  In 
one  year  between  the  Tone  and  the  Tamar  his 
charities  amounted  to  four  thousand  jx)unds.  I 
had  heard  it  said  that  the  first  Duke  often  drove 
down  to  the  House  of  Lords  in  a  hansom.  In 
point  of  time  he  might  have  done  so,  because 
the   development    of   the   private    cabriolet   into 

73 


Great  Victorians 

the  hansom  cab  completed  itself  in  1823, 
though  further  improved  upon  ten  years  after- 
wards. The  second  Duke,  however,  main- 
tained that  his  father  and  a  hired  hansom  were 
strangers  to  each  other,  adding,  *'  In  those  days 
hansoms  were  almost  exclusively  patronized  by 
Albert  Smith's  *  gents,'  who  drove  in  them  with 
the  short  clay  pipes  in  their  mouths  then  more 
fashionable  than  cigars .  For  the  most  part  of  his 
Grace  either  walked  to  Westminster  across  the 
Park,  or  very  much  less  frequently  drove  there 
in  an  open  conveyance  invented  by  himself,  some- 
thing of  the  hansom  type.  I  am  the  more  clear 
on  this  point  because  my  only  drive  with  him 
in  this  vehicle,  in,  I  think,  the  year  of  his  death, 
was  followed  by  the  only  speech  I  ever  heard 
him  make  in  Parliament.  Some  speaker  had 
charged  him  with  not  understanding  the  measure 
then  debated.  *  Well,  my  lords,  all  I  can  say 
is  that  I  read  the  Bill  once,  I  read  it  twice,  I 
read  it  three  times,  and  if  after  that  I  don't 
understand  the  Bill,  why,  then,  my  lords,  all  I 
have  to  say  is  that  I  must  be  a  d— — d  stupid 
fellow.' "  "  Did  the  Duke,"  I  once  asked, 
*'  trouble  to  prepare  any  remarks  he  had  to 
make?"  "He  never,"  was  the  answer,  "spoke 
about  anything  that  he  did  not  know  about  in 
all  its  aspects."     He  had  an  instinctive  passion 

74 


Mitre  and  Baton 

for  details ;  he  would  have  made  a  first-rate 
sub-editor,  for  he  read  all  the  newspapers.  He 
never  missed  anything  in  them  :  if  fresh  inven- 
tions, such  as  small  patents,  etc.,  were  adver- 
tised, he  at  once  sent  out  his  servant  to  get 
them,  examined  them  minutely,  often  introduced 
them  into  his  speeches,  and  let  the  patentee 
know  if  they  did  not  answer  his  description 
of  them.  No  public  word  uttered  by  the  Duke 
ever  miscarried,  because  of  his  authority,  not  his 
oratorical  skill.  On  his  feet  at  Westminster  he 
cast  off  all  resemblance  to  himself  in  private 
or  on  the  battlefield.  Carried  away  by  the  im- 
petus of  a  vehement  and  emphatic  delivery,  he 
delivered  his  opinions  on  an  enlarged  scale,  and 
revelled  in  superlatives.  A  vote  of  thanks  to 
an  Indian  General  was  recommended  after  a 
campaign,  **  the  most  brilliant  ever  seen."  A 
not  very  serious  disturbance  exceeded  every- 
thing within  the  range  of  his  experience.  *'  His 
Grace's  foreign  politics  as  the  first  man  of  his 
age  in  that  line?  "  said  the  second  Duke,  repeat- 
ing to  himself  my  question.  "  My  father,  as  you 
know,  created  our  present  embassy  in  Paris,  and, 
in  conjunction  with  Talleyrand,  arranged  every- 
thing for  the  restoration  of  Louis  XVHI,  after 
his  return  from  Ghent,  where  he  had  been  in 
exile.      He  was  a  real  non -interventionist,   aji4 

n 


Great  Victorians 

as  such  his  whole  system  lies  in  a  nutshell.  *  It 
is  no  concern  of  ours  what  form'  of  government 
other  nations  think  fit  to  set  up.  If  they  prefer 
despotism,  let  them  keep  it.  If  they  replace 
despotism  with  free  institutions,  let  us  not  inter- 
fere. Our  sole  duty  is  that  they  observe  exist- 
ing treaties,  and  give  the  King's  subjects,  when 
mixing  with  them,  protection  of  life  and  pro- 
perty.' As  for  the  various  diplomatists  with 
whom  he  had  to  do,  his  Grace  placed  Talley- 
rand as  easily  first  as  among  generals  he  placed 
Mass^na.  'Talleyrand,'  my  father  repeatedly 
told  me,  '  never  talked  for  effect  in  society  or 
flashed  out  witticisms.  But  if  you  carefully 
listened  you  were  sure  to  hear  at  intervals  some- 
thing so  good  that  you  would  remember  it  all 
your  life.'  "  After  his  victories  it  was  not  his 
universally  acknowledged  authority  and  wisdom 
which  impressed  foreigners  so  profoimdly,  but 
his  detestation  of  fuss  and  pomp.  Eor  instance, 
in  1 8 14,  after  the  retreat  of  Soult's  army,  the 
Mayor  and  municipality  of  Toulouse  prepared 
him  a  grand  reception  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville, 
waiting  till  he  should  approach  the  chief  gate 
of  the  town.  With  a  single  aide-de-camp  he 
rode  round  to  another  entrance,  took  his  place 
on  the  balcony,  bowed,  and  then  disappeared. 
"No  general,"  Mr.  Gleig  once  told  me,  "ever 

76 


Mitre  and  Baton 

succeeded  to  such  an  extent  in  inspiring  his 
troops  with  the  integrity  and  honour  which 
animated  his  whole  life."  His  soldiers  conse- 
quently won  the  goodwill  of  the  people  through 
whose  land  they  marched.  The  natives  there- 
fore permitted  the  Duke's  hounds  to  follow  in 
the  rear  of  his  army,  so  that  he  had  more  than 
one  day's  hunting  in  the  interval  of  battles. 
Neither  Napoleon  nor  the  Duke  ever  allowed 
any  one  to  shave  him.  The  Duke  took  his 
razors  to  a  small  shop  in  Piccadilly,  and  waited 
while  they  were  being  set  or  ground ;  his 
supreme  antagonist  carried  throughout  his  cam- 
paigns a  strop  and  hone  made  or  bought  in 
Ajaccio.  The  great  statue  of  Napoleon  by  an 
Italian  sculptor  was  the  decoration  of  Apsley 
House.  Here  it  happened  more  than  once  that, 
unexpectedly  appearing  when  all  the  world  was 
out  of  town,  the  Duke  found  only  caretakers. 
"It  does  not,"  he  said,  '*  signify  in  the  least. 
I  can  afford  to  do  without  servants.  I 
always  brush  my  own  clothes,  and  if  I  were 
strong  enough  I  would  black  my  own  boots." 
One  domestic  office  the  Duke  never  performed 
—a  family  *'  job."  During  the  Peel  Govern- 
ment an  important  place  fell  vacant  in  Ireland. 
One  of  his  Irish  relatives,  anxious  to  get  it, 
wrote  :    "  One  word  from  your  Grace  would  be 

77 


Great  Victorians 

sufficient."  By  return  of  post  came  the  answer : 
**  Dear ,  Not  one  word,  from  yours  affec- 
tionately, Wellington." 

The  second  Marchioness,  grandmother  to  the 
present  Marquis,  of  SaHsbury  had  perhaps  a 
deeper  and  truer  insight  into  the  Duke*s  real 
character  than  any  other  woman  of  her  time. 
"  You  always,"  she  once  said  to  him,  "  take 
things  so  coolly,  that  I  suppose  you  never  lie 
awake  with  anxiety?"  "No,"  he  said;  "I 
make  it  a  point  never  to  be  anxious,  and  I 
never  lie  awake  at  all."  With  women  his 
manner  varied.  When  in  India  he  had  given 
up  violin  playing  as  a  frivolous  amusement  and 
waste  of  time.  After  this  his  chief  relaxation 
was  supplied  by  human  beings.  These,  if  they 
happened  to  be  of  the  other  sex,  were  treated 
as  agreeable  companions  or  as  playthings.  In 
neither  aspect  could  any  one  of  them  safely 
promise  a  friend  to  say  a  word  for  him  to 
the  Duke  with  anything  like  a  certainty  of  suc- 
cess. '*  No  woman,"  he  once  said  to  one  of 
his  West  of  England  hostesses,  *'  ever  loved 
me."  And  this  remarkably  clever  lady  summed 
up  for  my  benefit  his  whole  personal  ex- 
periences. "  His  father  died  when  he  was 
twelve  years  old.  His  mother  was  unsym- 
pathetic ;     he    never    felt    himself    one    of    his 

78 


Mitre  and  Baton 

own  family.  His  whole  life  was  as  loveless  as 
his  school  life  was  broken  and  his  education 
imperfect . 

*'  Number  i,  London,"  was  the  Duke's  de- 
scription of  his  home  at  Hyde  Park  Corner 
when,  with  boyish  satisfaction  and  glee,  he 
surveyed  the  finishing  strokes  to  the  structure, 
put  by  himself.  The  situation  was  then  abso- 
lutely unique  at  the  West  End.  On  two  sides 
were  Park  ;  in  front,  scarcely*  an  obstacle  then 
existed  to  bar  the  view  to  Kensington.  The 
particular  spot  also  had  military  traditions ; 
these,  with  characteristic  thoroughness  of  in- 
quiry, he  had  found  out  before  any  one  else 
suspected  their  existence.  George  II  had  given 
the  piece  of  ground  at  the  north  end  of  Hyde 
Park  to  an  old  soldier  who  fought  with  him 
at  Dettingen,  named  Allen.  There,  for  his  and 
her  support,  his  wife  kept  a  stall.  In  1771 
Lord  Chancellor  Apsley,  who  eventually  became 
Lord  Bathurst  appropriated  the  site  for  him- 
self, and  set  the  builders  to  work.  Mrs.  Allen, 
the  apple  woman,  entered  a  claim  of  compen- 
sation for  disturbance,  brought  an  action  (called 
at  the  time  "a  suit  between  two  old  women*'), 
and  the  defendant  was  cast  in  heavy  damages. 
Mrs.  Allen,  with  the  little  fortune  thus  acquired, 
found  a  more  congenial   home  farther   west  at 

79 


Great  Victorians 

Kew  ;  and  George  III  increased  the  area  avail- 
able for  the  Chancellor's  operations  by  giving 
him,  in  1784,  all  the  space  occupied  by  the 
Park  Lodge.  The  original  mansion  of  red 
brick  had  been  designed  by  the  Chancellor 
himself,  who  had  completed  the  first  floor  before 
providing  any  means  of  communication  with  the 
second.  The  staircase,  indeed,  seems  not  to 
have  been  fully  equipped  till  the  years  during 
which  the  whole  place  becamfe  the  property  of 
the  Duke's  brother,  while  in  1808  Foreign 
Secretary,  and  living  there  in  high  state  till  the 
January  of  1 8 1  5  ;  five  years  afterwards  it  was 
bought  by  the  Duke,  who  combined  with  this 
possession  the  official  Downing  Street  abode 
when  Prime  Minister  in  1828.  The  new  owner 
could  therefore  place  it  in  the  hands  of  Wyatt, 
the  builder,  to  remove  its  great  inconveniences. 
The  Duke^  however,  made  daily  visits  from 
Westminster  to  see  the  progress  made,  to  con- 
fer with  the  clerk  of  the  works,  and  to  instruct 
the  masons  in  certain  details  of  their  craft. 
When  the  Waterloo  anniversary  of  1830  came 
round,  the  casing  of  the  red  brick  with  Bath 
stone  was  finished ;  the  west  wing  and  portico 
of  the  same  material  were  added.  The  national 
demi-god,  his  fighting  days  over,  had  installed 
himself  beneath  a  roof  exactly  to  his  own  taste, 

80 


Mitre  and  Baton 

and  with  many  surroundings  practically  of  his 
own  creation.  No  alteration  was  made  till, 
during  the  Reform  Bill  Riots,  183 1-2,  there 
were  added  the  Bramah  bullet-proof  iron  blinds, 
taken  down  by  the  second  Duke  in  1856. 
A  propos  of  St.  James*s  Square,  the  Faubourg 
Saint -Germain,  as  he  called  it,  of  London, 
Disraeli  in  "  Lothair "  expatiates  on  the  free 
and  patrician  life  of  its  inhabitants.  Of  that 
life  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  Apsley  House  became  the  centre,  while 
his  sobriquet,  the  **  beau,"  showed  that  the  Duke 
ranked   as   the  personification. 

Whatever  may  have  been  his  views  about  the 
Divine  Right  of  Kings,  the  Duke  held  the  pro- 
videntially pre-ordained  supremacy  of  the  upper 
classes  to  be  in  the  interests  of  the  whole  com- 
munity, and  regarded  the  universal  deference 
commanded  by  himself  not  so  much  as  the 
tribute  due  to  a  great  soldier,  but  the  mark 
of  respect  which  belonged  of  right  to  the  most 
familiar  figure  of  an  aristocratic  class  that  should 
know  only  one  motto.  Noblesse  oblige.  He 
was  not  only,  to  repeat  a  word  already  applied 
more  than  once,  the  sage  of  Europe,  after  his 
soldiering  days  had  closed,  but  the  chief  around 
whom  there  naturally  rallied'  all  the  forces  of 
aristocratic   privilege    and   pride.      Such   a   man 

81  F 


Great  Victorians 

could  not  wear  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve.  If 
he  had  not  concealed  his  true  self  by  a  stony 
mask  the  "  Iron  Duke  "  might  have  been  seen 
as  the  slave  of  sentiment.  The  few  who  had 
access  to  him  in  Brussels  saw  no  approach  to 
triumph  or  joy,  nothing  but  blunt  gravity  in 
his  tone,  when  he  spoke  about  the  battle.     **  It 

has    been    a    very    serious    business,    a    d d 

near  thing,  the  nearest  you  ever  saw  in  your 
life.  Bliicher  and  I  have  lost  thirty  thousand 
men,  and  I  don't  think  it  would  have  been  done 
if  I  had  not  been  there.''  All  that  was  for  the 
world's  consumption.  Those  who  surprised 
him  in  his  room  often  found  him  with  eyes 
which  dropped  tears  on  the  paper.  For  art  and 
letters  he  had  no  turn,  but  the  eyes  and  mouth 
proclaimed  the  whole  being  to  be  traversed  by 
a  vein  of  strong  and  deep  sentiment.  When 
those  he  loved  were  about  him  he  could  not 
but  let  himself  go.  After  speaking  about  the 
battle  in  the  way  just  described  he  was  with 
his  niece,  Lady  Fitzroy  Somerset,  and  when 
trying  to  say  something  on  the  subject  burst 
into  a  flood  of  tears.  His  most  intimate  friend, 
Mrs .  Arbuthnot,  died ;  he  washed  his  eyes  and 
showed  not  a  sign  of  emotion  when  he  appeared 
in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  Rev.  G.  R.  Gleig 
has  described  what  passed  when  he  first  heard 

82 


Mitre  and  Baton 

of  Arbuthnot  Mmself  being  seriously  ill. 
Clasping  the  doctor's  hand,  he  articulated  as 
well  as  he  could,  **  No,  no,  he  is  not  very 
bad;  he'll  get  better;  he'll  not  die."  At 
the  funeral  afterwards  the  power  of  self-control 
entirely  failed  him.  Only  a  strong  effort  of 
the  iron  will  enabled  him  to  stay  the  service  out. 

In  houses  that  he  frequently  visited,  or  had 
but  lately  left,  conversation  dwelt  on  the  minutest 
details  of  his  person  and  manner.  The  impres- 
sion left  by  this  talk  when  least  untrustworthy 
was  that  the  secret  of  his  charm,  especially  for 
women,  lay  in  his  smile ;  never,  I  believe, 
shown  more  happily  than  when  some  lady 
asked  him,  '*  Is  it  true  you  were  surprised  at 
Waterloo?  "  only  to  call  forth  the  answer^  **  No, 
but  I  am  now." 

A  venerable  friend  of  the  present  writer  was 
well  acquainted  with  a  once  very  attractive  lady 
who  had  won  the  favour  both  of  Wellington 
and  his  famous  adversary.  Which  of  the  two 
did  she  prefer?  She  shook  her  head,  and  with 
a  puzzled  air  said,  '*  Napoleon  was  the  lover, 
but  Wellington  was  the  gentleman."  Had  the 
phrase  "  the  first  gentleman  of  Europe  "  been 
applied  to  him,  it  would  have  fitted  him  to  the 
life  ;  for,  with  all  his  little  failings,  he  showed 
a  consideration  for  others'  feelings  at  once  the 

83 


Great  Victorians 

mark    of   good   breeding   and   practical   Christi- 
anity.       During      his      engagement     to     Lady 
Catherine    Pakenham    he    was    on    foreign    ser- 
vice;     he    had   not   seen    his    fiancee   for   years. 
Her   family    disapproved   of   the   match.      Since 
Wellington,  then  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  saw  her 
last,   she  had  been  disfigured  by  the  smallpox. 
The  lady  wrote  a  letter  of  release.     He  refused 
the  proffered  freedom,  and  married  her  in  1806, 
the  year  of  his  going  into  the  House  of  Com- 
mons  as    Member  for   Rye.      Of   course   before 
that,  as  well  as  after,  Rumour,  as  with  the  great 
it    always    happens,    occupied    herself    with    her 
bonnes   fortunes   and   escapades.      In    18 16  his 
name   had   been   mixed    up  with   that   of   Lady 
Frances  Webster  ;    she  brought  an  action  against 
the     libeller,     and    got    two    thousand    pounds 
damages.      About    the    same    time    there    were 
stories     of     philandering    with     Lady     Caroline 
Lamb,  his  flatterer  certainly  (and  he  could  take 
adulation  in  large  doses),  but  probably  not  his 
sweetheart . 

Some  years  later  than  this  a  lady  of  the 
easiest  virtue,  Harriet  Wilson,  had  a  good 
deal  to  say  about  him  in  a  book,  reprinted,  I 
believe,  within  the  last  few  years.  The  Duke 
took  no  notice,  but  congratulated  himself  that 
her  memory  was  not  so  good  as  his.     All  this 

84 


Mitre  and  Baton 

sort  of  thing  soon  became  public  property ; 
naturally  the  most  of  it  was  made  in  Whig 
circles.  Hence,  when  he  excused  himself  for 
leaving  a  Woburn  Abbey  party  prematurely  on 
the  plea  of  Cabinet  business  in  London,  the 
Duchess  of  Bedford  acknowledged  the  letter  in 
six  words  :  "  DEAR  DuKE,— Eor  Cabinet  read 
boudoir."  Facts  or  fictions  of  this  kind  were 
limited  to  the  smart  circles  of  the  period  exclu- 
sively in  London.  They  never  penetrated  or 
even,  I  think,  reached  the  outside  world. 

When  taken  in  my  childhood  to  visit  the 
Great  Exhibition  in  Hyde  Park,  I  have  a  dim 
recollection  of  a  shortish  figure,  perfectly  erect, 
seated  on  a  little  white  cob,  gently  cantering 
down  Piccadilly  towards  the  enclosure  where  the 
world's  show  was  held,  sometimes  amid  the  awed 
silence  as  of  a  crowd  that  beheld  a  more  than 
human  vision,  but  now  and  then  to  the  music  of 
cheers,  whose  outburst  it  did  not  seem  in  human 
nature  to  suppress  or  forbid. 

For  much  concerning  the  Duke  and  the  habit 
in  which  he  lived  one  has  had  to  draw  upon 
those  of  one's  elders  to  whom  his  daily  aspects 
had  long  been  familiar.  A  first-hand  testimony 
to  the  far-reaching  social  influence  unconsciously 
exercised  by  him  may  now  be  given.  It  has 
been    seen    already    how    Bishop   Phillpotts    on 

85 


Great  Victorians 

leaving  Exeter  Cathedral  with  his  ecclesiastical 
counterpart  mechanically,  after  the  fashion  of 
Major  Pendennis,  strained  himself  to  his  utmost 
height,  and  assumed  something  of  the  erect 
military  gait.  What  was  done  without  thinking 
of  it  by  Henry  of  Exeter  might  be  seen  during 
those  years  and  long  afterwards  in  the  case  of 
innumerable  laymen  and  divines.  It  was  in  the 
latter  of  these,  and  especially  among  those  who 
doubled  the  parts  of  vicar  and  squire,  that  I 
chiefly  used  to  see  it.  The  parish  clergyman 
now  referred  to  possessed,  perhaps,  a  Welling- 
ton nose.  He  proceeded  to  enlarge  the  per- 
sonal resemblance  by  taking  on,  more  than 
half  unintentionally,  the  Wellington  manner. 
The  Duke  used  informally  to  inspect  those 
who  made  up  his  little  establishment  at  Walmer 
Castle  ramparts.  The  "squarson"  now  in  my 
mind's  eye,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Blackdown 
Hills,  surveyed  his  household  after  morning 
prayers  in  the  little  grass -grown  yard  of  his 
manor-house,  fronted  by  a  bowling-green 
trodden  by  guests  who  had  sometimes  included 
Lord  Lyndhurst,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  the 
Waterloo  hero  himself.  The  whole  method  of 
inspection,  the  issue  of  orders  for  the  day  or 
week,  and  the  reception  of  reports  from  head 
gardeners,    under -bailiffs,    and    the    foremen    of 

86 


Mitre  and  Baton 

hedgers  and  ditchers,  proceeded  on  lines  of 
precision  not  less  redolent  of  the  barrack  yard  or 
drill -ground  than  the  life,  movement,  and  sounds 
now  predominant  over  all.  Many  years  after- 
wards, having  only  recalled  it  by  chance,  I 
mentioned  this  to  the  Rev.  G.  R.  Gleig. 
"  Yours,"  he  said,  *'  was  by  no  means  a  unique 
experience.  His  Grace,  you  see,  loomed  so  large 
in  the  national  eye  and  mind  that  every  class 
of  the  community  found  itself  unconsciously 
reproducing  some  Wellingtonian  characteristic.'* 
These  personal  impressions,  even  when  not 
for  the  first  time  placed  on  paper,  will  at  least 
be  generally  fresh  enough  to  merit  some  record. 
They  have  no  pretension  to  embody  anything 
like  a  biography,  and  may  therefore  be  sup- 
plemented by  one  of  the  Duke's  little  known 
achievements  in  time  of  peace,  forming  the 
appropriate  sequel  and  completion  of  the  results 
won  for  his  country  in  war.  The  founder  of  the 
British  Embassy  in  Paris  was  an  ancestor  of  its 
present  occupant.  Sir  Erancis,  now  Lord,  Bertie. 
That  predecessor,  Lord  Norreys,  dispatched  to 
France  in  1566,  stands  out  from  other  diplo- 
matists of  his  own,  or  a  little  earlier,  age  as 
among  the  first  permanently  accredited  to  a 
foreign  Court  (1566).  Before  then  envoys 
extraordinary  were  sent  as  necessity  might  arise 

87 


Great  Victorians 

on  missions  ad  hoc— the  negotiation  of  a  royal 
marriage,  the  conclusion  of  a  peace,  the  con- 
spiracy between  two  contracting  Powers  for 
seizing  some  possession  of  an  objectionable  or 
helpless  neighbour  and  adding  it  to  their  own. 
The  trick  having  been  done,  the  agent  returned 
home,  found  a  grand  reception  with  a  grant  of 
land  and  generally  a  title  awaiting  him  from 
his  Sovereign ;  and,  it  may  be  added,  when 
travelling  for  pleasure  beyond  the  seas,  was 
discreetly  careful  not  to  show  himself  again  on 
the  scene  of  his  international  triumphs.  Queen 
Elizabeth's  representative  at  the  Court  of 
Charles  IX  is  thought  to  have  lived  at  no 
very  great  distance  from  the  spot  occupied  by 
his  official  descendant  to-day.  His  special 
business  was  to  arrange  an  Anglo-French  con- 
vention which  would  improve  the  position  of 
French  Protestants.  Of  course  he  failed,  and 
was  superseded  by  Sir  Francis  Walsingham'. 
The  importance  of  the  negotiations,  and  the 
distinction  of  the  political  company  attracted  by 
them  to  the  Seine,  gave  sixteenth-century  Paris 
the  same  place  among  diplomatic  capitals  as 
that  filled  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  afterwards 
by  The  Hague.  As  the  prize  of  the  profession 
the  Paris  Embassy  went  in  the  first  half  of  the 
Victorian  era  to  the  Duke's  brother,  Lord  Cowley. 

88 


Mitre  and  Baton 

The  Napoleonic  wars  were  broken  by  the  short 
peace  (April  1814  to  March  181  5),  the  term  of 
Napoleon's  detention  at  Elba.  Then  it  was  that 
the  Duke's  ambassadorial  experiences  began. 
He  had,  however,  at  this  time  no  special  house 
for  their  performance,  but  did  his  diplomatic 
and  political  business  in  an  hotel  at  the  comer 
of  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and  the  Rue 
Boissy  d'Anglas.  The  European  peace  per- 
manently re-established  itself  in  181 5.  The 
Duke  now  determined  that  those  entrusted,  like 
himself,  with  his  Sovereign's  business  with  his 
nearest  continental  neighbour  should  be  suit- 
ably lodged.  He  therefore  bought  39  Faubourg 
Saint -Honore,  our  present  Embassy,  from  the 
Princess  Pauline  Borghese  for  £25,000.  To- 
day it  is  worth  ten  times  that  amount,  which 
shows  the  purchaser  to  have  been  scarcely  less 
of  an  expert  in  the  art  of  commercial  bargain- 
ing than  in  that  of  war.  Never— was  the  ver- 
dict, not  only  of  the  British  Empire  but  of  the 
European  Corps  diplomatique — did  the  Ambas- 
sador take  possession  of  his  new  abode  during 
months  more  memorable  than  those  which  wit- 
nessed the  instability  and  insecurity  of  a 
dominion  obtained  by  violence  and  fraud. 
Only  a  year  before  the  malign  influence  of 
France   had    dominated   Europe ;     like   a   pesti- 

89 


Great  Victorians 

lence  it  had  enfeebled  and  tormented  all  the 
nations .  In  1815  it  was  only  remembered 
like  a  sick  man's  dream.  Sic  semper  tyrannis 
was  perhaps  the  only  Latin  quotation  ever  made 
by  the  Duke ;  with  that  he  clinched  his  pre- 
diction that  future  attempts  to  imitate  the 
Napoleonic  example  would  end  in  a  like  col- 
lapse. In  the  intervals  of  re-establishing  the 
French  Monarchy,  the  Duke  made  a  little  journey 
in  Belgium  and  France.  In  the  country  inn 
where  he  spent  the  night  an  English  lady  was 
taken  seriously  and  suddenly  ill.  At  first  there 
seemed  no  chance  of  procuring  medical  help. 
Presently,  however,  a  young  Scotch  doctor 
named  Stewart  appeared  among  the  latest 
British  arrivals.  He  at  once  attended  to  the 
invalid,  in  whom  the  Duke  had  recognized  the 
wife  of  one  of  his  officers.  His  professional 
services  proved  so  successful  that  the  lady's  life 
was  saved  ;  her  convalescence  was  assured,  as 
was  also  the  young  physician's  future.  For  the 
Duke,  as  Commander-in-Chief,  at  once  nomi- 
nated him  to  one  of  the  best  positions  on  the 
medical  staff  of  the  Army. 


90 


CHAPTER    II 

FROM   WELLINGTON  TO   WOLSELEY 

A  Lemon  Street  statue  for  Lord  Raglan  as  a  Truro  ex-M.P. — 
Fitzroy  Somerset  acts  "  Ulysses  "  on  the  Latin  play  stage  at 
Westminster  School — Grinds  at  Spanish  with  the  future 
Duke  of  Wellington  on  the  voyage  out  to  the  Peninsula — 
By  marriage  with  Lady  Harriet  Wellesley  becomes  the 
Duke's  nephew-in-law — During  the  peace  interval  of  1814 
Secretary  of  the  Duke's  Paris  Embassy  —  House  of 
Commons  days — Military  promotion,  and  created  Lord 
Raglan  in  1852 — With  the  Badminton  foxhounds  and  in 
the  Savernake  game  coverts — As  aide-de-camp  at  Waterloo 
loses  his  arm,  but  will  not  lose  the  ring  which  is  a 
present  from  his  wife — After  the  Crimea — Cardigan  and 
his  colonels  on  the  King's  Road,  Brighton — Aristocrat 
and  hussar  —  The  old  patrician  regime  personified  — 
Much  virtue  in  the  lash — The  soldiers  starving  and  the 
General  in  a  floating  palace  —  Alvanley  and  Cardigan 
in  the  shires — Assheton  Smith  and  Cardigan  ride  against 
each  other  with  the  hounds  till  their  horses  nearly  drop  — 
The  troops  and  the  dying  Colonel :  "  All  safe  for  heaven  ! " 
— Gradual  appearance  of  new  and  better  military  types — 
Sir  William  Knollys,  the  founder  of  the  Aldershot  camp — 
Indian  soldiers  as  English  teachers — Lord  Lawrence  of  the 
Punjab — Chairman  of  the  London  School  Board — John 
and  Henry's  respective  epitaphs — Comparison  between  the 
two  brothers — Lord  Hardinge  and  the  Lawrences — Governor- 
General  of  India — The  Sikh  wars — Lough  Cutra  Castle — 
St.    Helen's,    Dublin— "  Paddy   Gough  "— Chillianwallah— 

91 


Great  Victorians 

Hardinge's  gallantry  in  the  Peninsula — "What,  tents,  and 
chairs  inside  them  !  "—Mrs.  Disraeli's  luck  in  her  nocturnal 
neighbours — At  daggers  drawn  with  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
and  the  Cabinet  during  the  Crimean  War — Dies  at  Tunbridge 
Wells  in  1856 — Outram,  the  "  Bayard  of  India" — Sir  Colin 
Campbell,  afterwards  Lord  Clyde,  of  Crimean  and  Indian 
fame — His  delight  with  the  House  of  Lords — With  all  he 
sees  in  town  and  country — Romps  with  children  in  the 
hayfield — Sir  Donald  Stewart  as  he  looked  and  walked 
in  Kensington  Gardens — A  typical  Highlander,  with  Norse 
strain  in  blood  and  features — Return  to  India — Commander- 
in-Chief  in  India — A  Councillor  at  the  India  Office — His 
character  summed  up  by  Lord  Bryce — A  keen  sportsman — 
Picturesque  figure  and  surroundings  at  Chelsea  Hospital — 
His  opinion  of  the  British  soldier — Sir  Louis  Mallet — His 
Board  of  Trade  work — Appointed  to  the  under-secretaryship 
in  1874 — Grandson  of  Mallet  Du  Pan,  the  French  publicist 
and  Revolution  refugee — Comes  to  represent  Cobdenism  at 
the  India  Office — Free  Trader,  economist,  and  cosmopolitan 
conversationist — How  he  saw  a  great  Duke  fall  down  the  stairs 
at  a  Paris  cafe  and  helped  to  pick  him  up  dead — Sir  Henry 
Norman — Norman  as  soldier  and  pupil  in  the  Lawrence 
school — The  might-have-been  Viceroy  of  1892 — His  last 
promotion  to  the  Chelsea  Hospital  governorship — Anglo- 
Indian  preparation  for  the  improved  officer  of  the  nine- 
teenth- and  twentieth-centiiry  type — Roberts  and  Salisbury 
afloat — A  glass  of  cold  water  :  "  Thy  necessity  is  greater 
than  mine  " — Some  points  in  common  between  Roberts  and 
Wolseley — Sir  George  Hamley,  the  Wolseley  type  ;  the  new 
army  and  the  results — Henry  Bracken  bury  as  a  type  and 
worker — Sir  Evelyn  Wood  and  Sir  Coleridge  Grove  the  only 
two  survivors  of  the  Wolseley  school — Sword,  pen,  and 
Sir  Evelyn  Wood — War  correspondent  types  from  Xenophon 
to  John  and  Henry  Hozier — The  three  brothers,  Sir  William, 
Charles,  and  Keith  Fraser — Brackenbury's  diary  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  War — Solving  the  mystery  of  Bazaine's 
movements — Hamber  and  Brackenbury's  proof — The  "hit  " 
92 


From   Wellington  to  Wolseley 

of  to-morrow — The  fifteenth-century  Sir  Robert  Brackenbury 
— Sir  John  Pender's  steam  yacht  Electra — Mowbray's  "  Est 
in  conspectu  Tenedos" — The  value  of  Wolseley's  associ- 
ation with  Brackenbury — The  latter's  articles  on  military  re- 
form— Office  of  Commander-in-Chief  abolished — Bismarck's 
desire  to  interview  Wolseley — Sir  Charles  Dilke  given 
Bismarck's  opinion  of  Lord  Wolseley  by  the  German  states- 
man himself — At  Cran brook,  Mr.  Pandeli  Ralli's  Surrey 
country  house — "  'Spects  I  growed  " — The  officer  who  had 
nothing  to  wear — Albert  Smith's  gent — Cremorne  Gardens 
— Altercations  with  the  cabmen — Sir  Vincent  Caillard  the 
one  survivor  of  the  officers  trained  by  Wolseley's  ablest  deputy 
— The  Duke  of  Connaught's  request  —  Queen  Victoria's 
pleasure — Allan  Thorndike  Rice  and  Von  Moltke — The 
Prussian  soldier  a  subject  of  conversation — Lady  Wolseley 
and  Madame  Gallifet  the  best  dressed  women  in  Europe — 
Wolseley's  short  ten  minutes'  sleep  before  the  battle  of 
Tel-el-Kebir — Lord  Spencer  and  the  sleepy  Prime  Minister 
— Wellington  flirts  with  Madame  Quintana  just  before  the 
battle  of  Orthes,  where  the  Duke  was  slightly  injured — The 
Duke  has  a  short  repose  before  the  battle  of  St.  Sebastian — 
Lord  Kitchener's  preference  for  gold  and  silver  tea-services 
to  "  swords  of  honour." 


In  Lemon  Street,  Truro,  there  stands  a  monu- 
ment to  the  explorer  Lander.  When  I  first  saw 
it  a  generation  ago,  a  proposal,  periodically 
made,  was  being  pressed,  more  earnestly  than 
usual,  to  supplement  it  with  some  memorial  of 
Wellington's  best  known  officer  and  pupil,  chief 
of  the  staff  in  war,  during  the  peace  inter- 
val of  1 8 14- 1  5,  on  the  Duke's  secretarial  staff 
,at    the    Paris    Embassy,    and    eventually,    after 

93 


Great  Victorians 

Napoleon's    fall,    military    secretary    to    his   old 
chief     at    the    Horse    Guards.       Lord    Fitzroy 
Somerset's    connection   with   Cornwall    consisted 
in   his   father,    Henry,   the  fifth  Duke  of  Beau- 
fort,   having    married    Elizabeth,    Admiral    Bos- 
cawen's  daughter.      The    picturesque    home    of 
the    Boscawen   family   was   Tregothnan,    on   the 
river  Fal,  two  oi"  three  miles  from  Truro  town. 
When,    therefore,    he   had   laid  down  his   arms, 
and  wished  to  serve  his  country  in  peace,  the 
borough  of  Truro  provided  him'  with  a  seat  at 
St.    Stephen's   from    1818   to    1820,   and  again 
from     1826    to    1829.      Birth    and   association, 
therefore,    gave    him    a    place    in    the    politico - 
military  order  much  like  that  belonging  to  the 
great   Duke   himself.      In    his   own   person   and 
character  he  showed  from  the  first  the  blend  of 
the  courtly  grace  and  keen  sportmanship  common 
to   the   Somersets   with  the   chivalrous  courage, 
the    tenacity,    and    doggedness    characteristic    of 
the  "  sea-dogs  "  in  general  and  of  the  Boscawens 
in  particular.     Breeding,  therefore,  environment, 
temper,    and    bearing    made    Lord    Raglan    as 
much   a  representative  as  the  Duke  himself  of 
the  aristocratic  school  that  was  to  dominate  the 
army  from  Waterloo  to  Sebastopol. 

Fitzroy  Somerset  resembled  Arthur  Wellesley 
in   familiarity   with   Thames -side   but   not   Eton 

94 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

playing  fields.  His  education  had  been  picked 
up  at  Westminster,  beginning  when  that  school 
had  not  ceased  to  be  the  nursery  of  great  public 
servants.  Among  the  earliest  of  these  had  been 
the  Elizabethan  voyager  Hakluyt,  and  in  the 
next  century  Sir  Henry  Vane  and  other  political 
leaders  of  the  Cromwellian  era.  So  late  as  1846 
the  Russell  Cabinet  consisted  largely  of  Old 
Westminsters.  Among  Raglan's  Westminster 
contemporaries,  eventually  like  himself  field- 
marshals,  were  Lords  Anglesey,  Byng,  Strafford, 
and  Combermere.  Plautus  and  Terence  have 
not  alw^ays  supplied  the  sole  repertory  of  the 
Westminster  Latin  play.  In  Fitzroy  Somerset's 
day  Latin  dramas  were  written  by  a  certain 
Gager  for  the  Westminster  scholars ;  one  of 
these,  **  Ulysses  Redux,"  held  a  school  stage 
till  modern  times,  and  was  acted  in  by  Fitzroy 
Somerset,  who  told  Kinglake  he  had  come 
across  some  lines  in  it  containing  in  germ  a 
doctrine  afterwards  developed  by  the  playwright 
with  much  learning  in  a  treatise  advocating  the 
right  of  husbands  to  beat  their  wives.  Fitzroy 
Somerset  entered  the  Army  in  1804  as  a  cornet 
in  the  4th  Light  Dragoons.  Four  years  later 
he  exchanged  into  the  6th  garrison  battalion^ 
and  very  shortly  afterwards  transferred  himself 
to  the   43rd  Regiment.      He  had  no  acquaint- 

95 


Great  Victorians 

ance  with  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley  till  the  time  of 
starting  for  the  Peninsula.  His  introduction  to 
him  then  grew  into  a  friendship  before  their 
destination  was  reached.  On  their  way  out  the 
two  men  worked  together  at  the  Spanish  lan- 
guage. Throughout  the  entire  war  he  remained 
at  Wellington's  side,  first  as  aide-de-camp,  then 
as  military  secretary.  The  Bourbons  were  re- 
stored for  the  first  time  in  1814.  Louis  XVIII 
abdicated  and  fled  in  the  spring  of  the  next  year. 
The  peace  re-established  the  British  Embassy 
in  Paris,  with  Lord  Fitzroy  Somerset  for  Secre- 
tary of  Embassy.  The  quiet  interval  gave  the 
soldier-diplomatist  the  opportunity  of  finding  a 
wife  in  Emily  Harriet  Wellesley,  the  third 
Earl  of  Mornington's  daughter.  He  thus 
became  nephew  by  marriage  of  the  great  man 
himself. 

Fitzroy  Somerset's  conversion  into  Lord 
Raglan  two  years  before  his  appointment  to 
the  Crimean  command  might  have  been  taken 
as  indicating  his  place  in  official  opinion.  Out 
of  London,  in  the  Badminton  country,  no  run 
with  the  hounds  finished  that  did  not  see  him 
in  at  the  death.  In  London  clubs  and 
drawing-rooms,  to  afternoon  strollers  from 
Whitehall  by  way  of  St.  James's  Street  and  Pall 

Mall    to   Piccadilly,    his    tall,    broad-shouldered, 

96 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

well-preserved  figure   had   long    been   only    less 
familiar  than  that  of  Wellington  himself.     For 
he   had    been    Military   Secretary   to   the    Com- 
mander-in-Chief  at    the    Horse   Guards    till  the 
Duke's  death  in    1852.     Then  came  a  popular 
feeling   that,    as   the   last    representative   of   the 
great  Wellington  tradition,  in  the  event  of  war 
with  Russia  the  country  should  have  the  benefit 
of  his  associations  and  services.      All  his  work 
in     every     department    was    admitted     by     the 
severest    judges    to    have    been    the    very    best 
possible  of  its  kind.     But  outside  Whitehall  he 
had   no   great  experience,   and   even  there   less 
opportunity  than  he  might  have  had  of  develop- 
ing a  power  of  initiative,   because  Wellington's 
extraordinary     grasp     and    prodigious    industry 
made    him     absolutely    independent    and     self- 
sufficing.      So  said  Kinglake  to  his  Bridgwater 
constituents  when  the  war  broke  out ;   he  placed 
the   same   opinion   on  permanent   record  in   his 
"  Invasion  of  the  Crimea."  ^      Some  misgivings 
at    this    choice    arose    from    a    doubt    whether 
Raglan's  thirty  years'  apprenticeship  to  variou3 
military   departments    in    peace   time    would   be 
found  the  best  preparation  for  the  very  different 
responsibilities  of  the  field,  where,  as  Kinglake 
put  it,  with  picturesque  force,  the  genius  of  war 
'  Vol.  II,  p.  168. 

97  G 


Great  Victorians 

abhors  uniformity  and  tramples  upon  forms  and 
regulations.        Such      considerations,      however, 
weighed    only    with    the    thoughtful    and    more 
experienced  few.      The  English  people  at  large 
knew    nothing    about    Lord   Raglan    beyond   his 
name.      A    few,    perhaps,   remembered   his   tall, 
well-knit,   and  proportionate  figure  as  they  had 
seen  him  in  Pall  Mall,   the  bright,  placid  face 
surmounting   the   strong,   square   shoulders,   and 
the    skill    with   which   the    empty   sleeve    of   the 
arm  lost  at  Waterloo  was   so  arranged  that  its 
emptiness  was  almost  concealed.     Others  heard 
from  those  who  had  seen  him  with  the  Badmin- 
ton Hunt  or  in  the  game  coverts  of  his  native 
district   how   little  this  loss   interfered  with  his 
prowess    as    a    sportsman,    with    what    skill    he 
took  his  own  line  in  the  chase,  and  how  at  the 
end  of  the  run,  over  the  stiffest  country,  he  was 
always  in  the  same  field  as  the  fox.     First-rate 
judgment,   indeed,   united  itself  in   the  English 
Generalissimo     with     quickness     of     sight     and 
promptitude    in    decision.      A    manner    concili- 
atory  but    commanding  went  with   a  courteous 
and  unfailing  deference  in  details  to  the  opinion 
of  others.   That  quality  might  have  been  in  itself 
e^ough  to  justify  the  selection,  for  the  tall,  slight, 
sharp -featured  Frenchman,  Marshal  St.  Arnaud, 
who  was  to  be  Raglan's  colleagjue,  might,  it  was 

98 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

thought  by  those  who  knew  him,  rather  heavily 
tax  the  patience  and  self-control  of  the  British 
officers.  From  his  boyhood  at  Westminster  to 
his  departure  from  the  Crimea  nothing,  it  was 
said  by  those  who  had  been  much  with  him, 
could  ruffle  Fitzroy  Somerset's  temper  or  shake 
his  presence  of  mind. 

The  popular  estimate  found  its  support  in 
several  anecdotes  circulated  first  throughout 
those  regions  connected  from  time  immemorial 
with  the  Commander-in-Chief's  family.  The 
oldest  of  these  stories  went  back  to  Welling- 
tonian  days,  and  connected  itself  with  the  lost 
arm.  It  must  have  found  its  way  into  print 
long  since,  but  remains  so  illustrative  of  the 
man  as  to  be  repeated  here.  Late  in  the  day 
of  Waterloo,  as  he  stood  by  the  conqueror's 
side,  a  bullet  from  the  roof  of  La  Haye  Sainte 
struck  his  right  elbow,  and  necessitated  the 
amputation  of  the  arm.  He  went  through  the 
process  without  a  word  till  he  saw  the  attempt 
being  made  to  place  the  limb  out  of  his  sight. 
*'  Hallo  !  "  he  cried,  **  don't  take  away  that  arm 
till  I  have  taken  off  my  ring  "—one  given  him 
by  Lady  Raglan. 

The  home  affections,  indeed,  were  always 
strong  with  him.  *'  I  never  saw  him  really 
moved  but  once/'  was  the  expnerience  of  W.  H. 

99 


Great  Victorians 

Russell^  the  famous  war  correspondent.  "  He 
was  reading  a  letter  ;  his  eyes  filled  with  tears . 
*  It  is/  he  said,  as  if  apologizing,  *  from  my 
daughter.'  " 

Some  years  before  the  period  of  his  Crimean 
command,  he  had  been  one  of  a  shooting  party 
at  Savernake,  Lord  Ailesbury's  place,  near  Marl- 
borough. Two  fingers  of  the  keeper  loading 
Lord  Jocelyn's  gun  were  blown  off.  The  general 
practitioner  of  the  district^  with  his  surgical  in- 
struments, soon  appeared,  and  a  painful  opera- 
tion, occupying  a  few  minutes,  followed.  The 
company,  to  encourage  the  man,  stood  round, 
but  Lord  Raglan  was  so  overcome  as  nearly 
to  faint^  and  was  compelled  to  withdraw.  Yet 
this  was  the  man  who  had  been  unmoved  in 
the  thickest  of  a  hundred  fights^  and  whose 
calmness  amidst  all  the  horrors  of  war  had 
passed  into  a  European  proverb,  causing 
Marshal  St.  Arnaud  to  say,  "  C'est  tou jours 
le  meme  calme  qui  ne  le  quitte  jamais." 

I  pass  to  the  last  military  commander  of  the 
old  aristocratic  school,  recalled  by  me  to-day 
even  more  distinctly  than  any  of  his  contempo- 
raries. In  the  year  or  two  years  following  the 
Crimean  War  the  great  sight  of  the  Brighton 
season  was  Lord  Cardigan,  of  Balaclava  fame, 
on  horseback  in  the  King's  Road.     Riding;  with 

100 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

him  were  some  of  his   best-known  officers,  the. 
fourth  Sir  George  .Wombwell,  Sir  Roger  Palmer, 
and     Harrington    Trevelyan,    my    old    personal 
friend    and    relative,    from    whom     I    obtained 
my    first    knowledge    of    the    Crimean    officers, 
their   character    and   appearance.      Mounted   on 
the   beautiful   black  charger,  whose   glossy  coat 
flashed  and  glistened  in  the  frequent  bursts  of 
autumnal    sunshine,    the    leader    of    the    Light 
Brigade    seemed    his    countrymen's    ideal    of    a 
cavalry   chief,    still   in  the   prime  of  life.     Yet, 
like    the    Commander-in-Chief,    the    leader    of 
the   Light    Brigade   had  first   seen  light   in  the 
eighteenth  century.      Born  in    1797,   Lord  Car- 
digan   numbered    only    eleven    years    less    than 
Lord     Raglan.        Raglan's     keenly     observant 
manner,   swift,  gliding  walk  on  foot,  firm,  easy 
seat    on    horseback,    made   him,    at   the   age  ofl 
sixty -six,   the   admiration  and  envy  of  men  ten 
years  his  junior.     His  contemfrt  of  fussy  or  ad- 
vertising   display    found    no    reflection    in    the 
temper  of  his  French  colleague,   but  his  ready 
acquiescence  in  self-effacement  in  non-essentials 
won  him  affection  as  well  as  respect  among  our 
allies.     Both  the  commanders  of  the  whole  ex- 
pedition and  of  the  Light  Cavalry  Brigade  were 
middle-aged  men  or  rather  more.     Lord  Raglan, 
the    elder    by    nine   years,    was    sixty-six.    Lord 

lOI 


Great  Victorians 

Gardigan  fifty-seven.  Cardigan,  however, 
entered  the  Army  twenty  years  after  Raglan. 
Raglan  had  been  only  sixteen  when  he  obtained 
a  cornetcy  in  the  4th  Light  Dragoons ;  Car- 
digan on  receiving  the  same  position  in  the  8th 
Hussars  ^    was    twenty-seven. 

All  the  great  Generals  of  the  mid -Victorian 
age,  not  only  those  already  mentioned  but  those 
presently  to  be  met  with,  belonged  by  birth, 
like  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  to  the  eighteenth 
century.  Like  him,  too,  they  all  presaged  at 
times  the  human  sentiment,  the  intellectual  en- 
lightenment, and  the  social  tolerance  which 
passed  for  nineteenth  -  century  attributes.  To 
that  rule  Cardigan  formed  the  one  exception. 
Wellington  and  Raglan  were  students  as  well 
as  fighters.  Cardigan  never  opened  a  book  after 
he  left  school,  and  showed  a  patrician  contempt 
for  habits  of  intellectual  as  well  as  moral  self- 
discipline  and  control.  With  the  absorbing 
selfishness,  the  imperiousness,  the  caprice,  and 
the  inhumanity  of  the  first  Erederick  William 
of  Prussia,  he  combined,  over  and  above  his 
high  courage,  the  solitary  merit  of  a  brutal 
frankness.      He  never  pretended  to  an  interest 

^  His  later  commissions  were :  8th  Hussars,  Lieutenant- 
Colonel,  1830;  15th  Hussars,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  1832;  nth 
Hussars,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  1836.  In  the  nth  he  stayed  fpr 
the  remainder  of  his  regimental  service. 

102 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

that  he  would  have  despised  himself  for  feeling 
in  fellow-officers,  men,  or  any  human  being. 
With  those  about  him  his  life  was  one  long 
quarrel  about  the  merest  trifles— for  instance,  one 
day  the  colour  of  a  bottle,  another  the  size  of 
a  teacup  i— leading,  in  the  case  of  his  equals, 
to  duels,  and  of  his  inferiors  to  a  heavy  dose 
of  the  lash.  He  had  succeeded  to  his  title  in 
the  year  Queen  Victoria  came  to  the  throne. 
While  Lord  Brudenell  he  had  won  notoriety  by 
the  rashness  of  his  charges  ag"ainst  officers  he 
disliked  .2  At  a  cost  of  not  much  less  than 
£30,000  Lord  Cardigan  in  seven  years  had 
risen  by  purchase  from  cornet  to  Colonel.  This 
outlay,  it  would  seem,  not  only  by  himself  but 
by  many  of  his  toadies,  was  held  to  justify  his 
treatment  of  other  officers  as  anything  but 
gentlemen,  and  of  private  soldiers  as  being 
below  the  level  of  the  *' beasts  that  perish.'* 
He  flogged  one  man  on  Simday  in  the  riding- 
school,  where  morning  church  had  just  been 
held ;  he  sentenced  another  to  a  hundred 
lashes  with  an  interval  of  half  a  minute 
between     each,     thus     protracting     the     agony 

^  Kinglake,  vol.  v.  p.  13. 

»  These  accusations,  resting  only  on  the  gossip  of  the  orderly- 
room,  had  in  1836  cost  him  the  command  of  the  15th  Hussars, 
and  involved  his  transfer  from  that  regiment  to  the  nth  Light 
Dragoons,  afterwards  known  as  the  nth  Hussars, 

103 


Great  Victorians 

of   the    tortured    man    by    something    like    fifty 
minutes.      In  the  regiment  which  he  controlled 
there  were,  during  the  space  of  two  years,    105 
courts -martial     and     700    punishments    of    de- 
faulters, i      Public  opinion  in  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  neither  so  strong  nor  so 
healthy  as  one  is  encouraged  to  consider  it  to- 
day.    The  new  wealth,  especially  if  it  went  with 
the  old  acres  and  high  titles,  covered  a  multi- 
tude of  sins.     Lord  Cardigan's  yacht,  a  floating 
palace,  with  its  fine  cuisine,  well-stocked  cellar, 
French  chef,  a  host  of  servants,  lay  at   g^nchor 
within  sight  of  the  battlefields.     Even  those  of 
his  countrymen  at  home  who  doubted  as  to  the 
appropriateness    of   the    display    felt    something 
of  what   they   liked  to   think  patriotic   pride  at 
the  impression  produced  alike  on  our  allies  and 
the  enemy  by  luxury  and  magnificence  waiting, 
amid  the  miseries  of  war,  on  the  great  English 
nobleman,    whose    recklessness    of   his    own   life 
almost   equalled   his   indifference   to   the   suffer- 
ings and  sickness  and  wants  of  others.     Unless 
these  considerations  are  borne  in  mind,  no  true 
idea  can  be  formed  of  the  Light  Cavalry  leader 
as  his   fellow-countrymen  saw  him,  not  only  in 
the  equestrian  promenade  on  the  Brighton  sea- 
front,   witnessed   by  the  present   writer,   but   as 

*  Walpole's  "History  of  England,"  vol.  iv.  p.  431. 

?04 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

he    stood    forth    to    the    entire    poiblic    on    the 
Crimean  battlefields. 

On  a   higher  social  level  his  contem^raries 
saw    nothing    unusual    in    the    insolence    which 
with  him  so  often  approached  or  rather  passed 
into     brutality.        "  You     should,"     said     Hugo 
Bohun   in   Disraeli's  novel,    '*  Lothair,"   **  buy  a 
theatre  ;    it  is  the  high  mode  for  a  swell."     The 
duel  in  its  palmiest  period  did  not  in  the  least 
improve  the  manners  of  the  hatit  ton.     As  Car- 
digan was   to  others,   so  others  had  habitually 
been   to    him'.      Lord  Alvanley    combined  some 
faculty  of  smart  sayings  with  a  mastery  of  the 
art  of  insult  that  formed  the  badge  of  all  his 
caste.      On   the   first  day   of  a   hunting   season 
the  two  men  met  on  a  field  just  out  of  Melton. 
Taking  his  hat  off,  Alvanley  said  to  Cardigan, 
"  I  hereby  beg  to  apologize  to  you,  not  only  for 
any   past   offences,   but  for  any   I   may  commit 
during  the   coming  season."     During  the  same 
year  Lord  Cardigan's  most  characteristic  quali- 
ties had  been  shown  in  a  run  with  the  Queen's 
staghounds.     From  one  who  rode  near  him  they 
were   thus   described  to  me.      '*  Lord  Cardigan 
never  gambled  with  his  Hfe  or  limb;    he  feared 
nothing,    rode    straight,   had  very   few  mishaps, 
partly  because  of  his  magnificent  animals,   but 
even  more  thanks  to  his  perfect  horsemanship^ 

105 


Great  Victorians 

unfailing  deliberation,  and  sound  judgment." 
All  this  had  been  seen,  not  only  by  his  fellow- 
comlnanders  in  the  war,  but  by  the  Duke  ojf 
Wellington,  who  in  reality  attached  more  im- 
portance to  the  hunting-field  than  the  Eton 
playing-fields  as   a  military  training. 

The  two  rivals  of  their  time  on  horseback 
were  Cardigan  and  Assheton  Smith.  On  the 
evening  before  the  day's  run  with  the  stag- 
hounds  the  pair  met  at  the  dinner -table  of  a 
Hampshire  country  house  where  they  were  stay- 
ing. They  glared  at  each  other  like  mortal 
enemies  about  to  fight  the  next  day,  and  rivals 
with  a  vengeance  they  then  showed  themselves. 
They  rode  a  regular  race  till  both  their  horses 
were  exhausted.  Cardigan  finished  two  or 
three  hundred  yards  farther  than  Smith,  and  so 
claimed  the  victory.  Next  to  his  personal 
valour  and  the  grand  scale  on  which  all  his 
life  was  ordered  came  Lord  Cardigan's  muni- 
ficent esprit  de  corps.  An  old  trooper  of  his 
regiment  lived  in  the  cottage  near  a  house  where 
I  often  stayed  during  the  late  sixties.  I  was 
there  at  a  short  distance  from  "  Deene,"  Lord 
Cardigan's  place,  when  the  soldier  who  had 
fought  with  him  in  many  battles  brought  news 
that  his  old  Colonel  lay  dying.  *'  Let  us  hope," 
was  the  devout  comment  of  a  rustic  bystander 

100 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

who  heard  the  news,  "  that  he  is  all  safe  for 
heaven."  *'  Safe  for  heaven  !  "  echoed  the  man. 
"  One  who  charged  the  whole  Russian  Army 
is  not  likely  to  be  kept  back  from  going 
where  he  wishes  by  all  the  powers  of 
darkness." 

Lord  Cardigan,  it  was  said  by  some  after  his 
retirement  from  service  as  well  as  on  his  death, 
left  a  name  which  would  for  ever  be  execrated 
because  of  his  severities  by  the  rank  and  filei 
of  the  British  Army.  He  did  nothing  of  thei 
sort.  All  his  excesses  had,  indeed,  been  for- 
gotten even  before  he  passed  away  by  the 
representative  class  on  which  his  hand  had 
fallen  most  heavily.  His  title,  the  splendour  of 
his  equipages,  his  fine  soldiership,  and,  above 
all,  the  sums  lavished  by  him  on  the  regiment 
which  he  had  made  the  smartest  in  the  service, 
were  remembered  with  appreciation  and  pride 
long  after  his  floggings  and  court -martiallings 
were  forgotten.  Neither  non-commissioned 
officers  nor  plain  privates  made  the  first  outcry 
or  led  the  earliest  movement  against  the  bar- 
barities of  the  lash.  These,  in  the  military 
estimate,  helped  to  make  hard  Englishmen,  like 
Charles  Kingsley's  hard,  grey  weather,  or  bully- 
ing at  school  and  the  most  ferocious  football 
code.      Lord   Cardigan's   trial  and  acquittal  for 

107 


Great  Victorians 

wounding  Captain  Tuckett  in  a  duel  excited  not 
the  slightest  prejudice  against  him  in  any 
quarter.  This,  indeed,  was  to  have  been  ex- 
pected, from  the  admission  made  in  the  House 
of  Commons  as  lately  as  1844,  that  an  officer 
who  refused  to  fight  a  duel  would  be  liable  to 
dismissal. I  Some  years  earlier  than  that  Baron 
Hotham,  in  charging  a  jury,  said  that  the 
acquittal  of  an  officer  who  had  slain  another 
in  a  duel  would  be  lovely  in  the  sight  of  God 
and  man.  The  public  commentators  on  this 
statement  boasted  that  our  judicial  annals 
had  not  been  darkened  with  a  single  con- 
viction for  murder  in  the  case  of  a  duel  fairly 
fought  .2 

Lord  Cardigan's  active  career  had  ended 
before  the  middle-class  public  opinion,  graded 
by  the  first  Reform  Bill,  had  organized  itself. 
During  the  previous  intensely  aristocratic  epoch 
the  nation  at  large  only  saw  in  him  what 
was  seen  by  the  admiring  loungers  on  the 
King's  Road,  Brighton,  after  the  war— a  mag- 
nificent specimen  of  the  coronet  power  which 
helped  to  secure  England  victory  over  her 
enemies  on  land  or  sea,  and  in  other  ways  made 
itself  indispensable  to  the  national  welfare. 

^  Hansard,  Ixxiii.  p.  827. 

•  Townsend's  "Modern  State  Trials,"  vol.  i.  pp.  152-5. 
108 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

To  a  type  very  different  from  those  so  far 
mentioned  belonged  the  nineteenth  -  century 
captains  who  had  made  the  soldiers'  well-being 
their  care,  and  who  at  the  beginning  of  their 
course  broke  with  the  disciplinarian  ideas  per- 
sonified by  the  purchase  officers  of  the  Cardi- 
gan school.  Among  those  mentioned  for  the 
chief  command  in  the  Crimea  on  Lord  Raglan's 
death  had  been  the  father  of  the  present  Lord 
Knollys.  Descended,  like  the  Cecils,  from  a 
long  line  of  Elizabethan  statesmen.  Sir  William 
Knollys  combined  with  the  presence  and  manner 
becoming  his  lineage  the  shrewd  wisdom  in 
affairs  and  the  wise  tolerance  as  regards  indi- 
viduals that  marked  the  leading  men  of  the 
period  in  which  his  family  first  became  famous. 
The  founder  of  the  Aldershot  camp,  as  its 
earliest  commander  he  had  taken  a  leading  part 
in  the  enquiries  and  proposals  made  by  the 
Committee  of  Military  Education.  No  officer 
of  his  standing  and  experience  possessed  in  an 
equal  degree  the  confidence  of  the  parlia- 
mentary leaders,  on  both  sides,  of  the  Court,  and 
of  the  country.  Hence  the  satisfaction  caused 
by  his  chairmanship  of  one  among  the  com- 
mittees investigating  the  food  and  health 
arnangements  of  tjie  Crimean  army.  The  tact^ 
insight^  considerateness,  and  wisdom  shown  by 

109 


Great   Victorians 

the  chairman  of  this  enquiry  caused  his  sub- 
sequent election  as  "  Governor  "  to  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  afterwards  King  Edward  VII.  As 
private  secretary  or  in  some  other  capacity  he 
continued  with  the  Prince  till  1877.  In  that 
year  his  *  secretarial  duties  were  taken  over  by 
his  son,  to-day  the  peer.  But  after  his  retire- 
ment from  Court  office  Sir  William  Knollys  had 
many  opportunities  of  suggesting  improvements 
in  the  conditions,  and  therefore  in  the  efficacy, 
of  the  Queen's  soldiers.  In  the  matter  of  disci- 
pline he  had  been  the  first  to  point  out  in  Pall 
Mall  that  an  Indian  Governor-General  under 
the  "  John  Company  *'  dispensation  had  abolished 
the  lash  in  the  Indian  Army.  At  this  time  Sir 
William  Knollys  might  often  have  been  seen  in 
the  lobby  of  the  House  of  Commons,  together 
with  an  eminent  Anglo-Indian  acquaintance  of 
about  his  own  height,  some  five  feet  ten.  This 
gentleman  had  a  squarely  built  and  closely 
knit  frame,  a  good  forehead,  strongly  marked 
features,  whose  expression  suggested  that  he 
had  known,  but  overcome,  great  difficulties. 
The  dark,  penetrating  eyes,  the  prominent 
cheekbones,  the  compressed  mouth,  the  long 
and  firm  upper  lip,  were  those  of  a  man  lack- 
ing neither  resolution  nor  sternness  in  the  hour 
of  crisis  ;  altogether  an  ideal  commander  of  men. 

no 


From  Wellington   to  Wolseley 

His  square-turned  joints  and  strength  of  limb, 
Showed  him  no  carpet-knight  so  trim, 
But  in  close  fight  a  champion  grim, 
In  camp  a  leader  sage. 

Sir  Walter  Scott's  description  of  his  Lord  Mar- 
mion  fitted  in  every  detail  the  then  Sir  John, 
afterwards  Lord,  Lawrence  of  the  Punjab ;  he 
it  was  who  subsequently  became  first  Chairman 
of  the  London  School  Board,  and  finished  in 
England  a  second  career  of  civil  and  military 
usefulness,  only  closed  in  1879  by  his  never- 
to-be-forgotten  funeral  in  Westminster  Abbey. 
At  the  impressive  service  round  his  grave  be- 
neath the  historic  roof  were  represented  all  that 
was  royal  and  in  any  way  great  or  distinguished 
in  the  London  and  England  of  his  time.  **  Here 
lies  John  Lawrence,  who  did  his  duty  to  the 
last,*'  were  the  words  chosen  by  one  who  knew 
him  well  as  the  brief  summary  of  his  life  and 
character,  and  therefore  an  appropriate  inscrip- 
tion for  his  grave.  His  brother  Henry,  killed 
in  the  Mutiny,  had  already  been  laid  to  his  rest 
at  Lucknow  with  the  sentence  *'  Who  tried  to  do 
his  duty"  written  after  his  name. 

These  famous  brothers  in  their  different  ways 
contributed  to  the  improvement  in  the  life  and 
instruction  of  the  private  soldier^  thus  far  syste- 
matically neglected  by  the  great  Generals   who 

III 


Great  Victorians 

had  led  him  to  victory.  Between  Henry  and 
John  Lawrence  there  existed  many  points  of 
resemblance  as  well  as  contrast.  The  elder 
brother,  a  soldier  by  profession,  became  best 
known  by  his  political  and  civil  work.  Lord 
Lawrence,  a  member  of  the  Civil  Service,  showed 
throughout  his  course  a  striking  aptitude  for 
military  affairs.  Both  in  an  equal  degree  never 
shrank  from  responsibility.  John  Lawrence  had 
so  disciplined  by  education  a  natural  genius  for 
detail  as  in  all  things  concerning  the  duties  of 
peace  to  become  the  most  trustworthy  of  sub- 
ordinates and  the  most  efficient  of  colleagues. 
Both  men  had  learned  the  business  of  their  life 
in  the  same  school,  under  one  teacher,  and 
together  with  common  class-fellows. 

In  1852  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  successor 
as  Commander-in-Chief  was  his  old  comrade  in 
arms,  almost  exactly  his  coeval,  and  his  second 
in  the  duel  with  Lord  Winchilsea.  Lord  Hard- 
inge  (born  1785)  had  proved  himself  a  great 
commander  in  the  same  campaigns  as  Lord 
Cough  during  the  first  Sikh  War,  and  received 
on  his  return  to  England  the  national  welcome 
given  to  heroes  as  well  as  promotion  to  the  rank 
of  Viscount.  Before  his  establishment  in  the 
supreme  command  at  home  he  had,  as  Governor- 
General  of  India^  trained  the  two  Lawrences  to 

112 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

the  work  that  showed  their  greatness.  Gener- 
ally agreed  in  their  views  of  Indian  administra- 
tion, they  differed  from  each  other  on  the  subject 
of  the  Punjab.  John  advocated  annexation; 
Henry  resisted  it,  in  deference,  as  he  said,  to 
the  scruples  of  native  Indians.  On  that  point 
he  could  speak  with  authority,  because  he  had 
won  in  a  signal  degree  the  confidence  of  the 
Sikhs,  with  whom  he  had  been  the  first 
Resident. 

The  conclusion  of  the  first  and  second  Sikh 
Wars  in  1846  and  1849  respectively  restored 
to  England  some  of  her  most  famous  soldiers. 
Henry  Lawrence  came  back  on  furlough  to  re- 
cruit his  health.  Hardinge  settled  in  his  native 
land  permanently  with  the  title  of  Viscount  and 
a  pension  amounting  to  £8,000,  £5,000  from 
the  East  India  Company  and  £3,000  from  the 
Government ;  Gough,  already  created  a  Baron 
in  1846,  became  a  Viscount,  with  liberal  money 
provision  from  the  East  India  Company  as  well 
as  from  the  Treasury,  and  further  received  a 
beautifully  situated  place^  Lough  Cutra  Castle, 
in  Western  Galway.  Standing;  on  a  picturesque 
sheet  of  water^  famous  for  its  fish,  the  house 
had  been  bought  from'  the  Encumbered  Estates 
Court,  and  had  been  decorated  and  furnished 
throughout   after  designs   by   Grace.      Many  of 

113  H 


Great  Victorians 

the  walls  were  covered,  not  with  paper,  but  with 
a  light  brown  leather,  on  which  were  stamped 
in  gold  or  coloured  letters  the  names  of  the 
owner's  g-reat  Indian  victories  from  Mudki,  in 
1845,  to  Gujerat,  in  1849.  Before  the  last  of 
these  came  another  fight  even  more  famous,  and 
proportionately  prominent  in  the  mural  records 
of  the  home  in  his  native  isle  given  to  that 
cross  betwixt  "  a  bulldog  and  a  salamander,"  as 
"  Paddy  Gough  "  was  styled  in  the  spirited  lyric 
which   deserves  to  be  better  known  than  it  is.i 

^  Chillianwallah. 
'Twas  near  the  famed  Hydaspes'  banks 
Where  flourished  once  the  great  king  Porus, 
Lord  Gough  incensed  the  British  ranks, 
And  the  Sikh  artillery  spoke  in  chorus ; 
The  troops  were  tired,  the  Khalsa  fired, 
And  they're  the  lads  that  seldom  bungle. 
Quoth  Gough  at  the  noise,  "Fix  bayonets,  boys, 
And  drive  those  blackguards  out  of  the  jungle  ! " 

Sabres  drawn,  bayonets  fixed. 

Fight  where  fought  brave  Alexander  : 

Paddy  Gough's  a  cross  betwixt 

A  bulldog  and  a  salamander. 

On  every  side  our  luck  we  tried, 
And  found  the  showers  of  shot  and  shell  come ; 
Where'er  we  went  to  our  sweet  content 
The  Sikhs  they  gave  us  a  pleasant  welcome. 
The  guns  went  smack,  the  rocks  went  crack. 
The  hills  were  black  o'er  Chillianwallah; 
But  our  General's  Irish  blood  was  up. 
And  the  battle-cry  was  "  Faugh-a-ballagh  !  " 
114 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

Lord    Gough    saw    comparatively    little    of    the 
pleasant  demesne  bestowed  on  him  by  a  grateful 

The  bould  dragoons  they  dashed  right  thro' 
And  back  again — 'twas  mighty  plucky; 

But  the  th  Bengals  disliked  the  balls, 

And  each  of  them  he  cut  his  lucky  !  ^ 

But  'twould  have  done  old  Homer  good 

To  see  the  charge  of  General  Gilbert's; 

Right  and  left  his  way  he  cleft, 

And  smashed  their  skulls  like  mouldy  filberts. 

General  Dawes,  he  gained  applause, 

His  fighting  lads  were  all  in  clover; 

'Twas  as  good  to  be  there  as  at  Donnybrook  Fair, 

And  no  police  when  the  fun  was  over. 

At  length  the  Sikhs  they  cut  like  bricks. 

Sheer  Singh  sheered  off,  nor  looked  behind  him; 

And  old  Sheer  Clutter  did  swear  and  splutter, 

But  nobody  cared  at  all  to  mind  him. 

And  none  shall  scoff  at  brave  old  Gough. 

Oh,  he's  a  chief  of  a  soldier's  choosing ; 

We  lads  abroad  will  always  applaud. 

Though  the  Times  at  home  be  always  abusing. 

By  Jumna's  side  their  might  he  tried, 

And  quelled  the  pride  of  the  Khalsa  gunners. 

And  laid  them  flat  at  Guzerat 

With  his  EngUsh-Irish  dose  of  stunners. 

Horatius  Flaccus  sang — they  say — 

About  "quae  loca  fabulosus 

Lambit  Hydaspes,"  and  his  lay 

Our  General's  high  renown  discloses ; 

Sure,  with  the  most  enchanting  grace 

He  goes  against  those  Punjab  caitiffs, 

Horace's  river  licks  the  place, 

But  Paddy  Gough  he  licks  the  natives, 


Great  Victorians 

country.  He  gave  it  over  almost  entirely  to  his 
son  with  his  young  family,  and  found  a  retire- 
ment for  his  declining  days  at  St.  Helens,  at 
no  great  distance  from  Dublin,  where,  almost  to 
the  last,  he  might  occasionally  be  seen  in  the 
famous  bow  window  of  the  Kildare  Street  Club. 
At  St.  Helens  he  now  and  then  received  a  visit 
from  the  very  few  survivors  of  his  active  years  ; 
but  when  I  was  permitted  to  approach  him  during 
the  sixties  I  recollect  hearing  it  said  that  the  most 
frequent  pilgrims  to  his  retreat  came  from  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  where  every  incident 
in  his  illustrious  course  was  followed  with  the 
minutest  interest  by  the  descendants  of  the 
soldiers  who   had  served  under  him'. 

The  new  military  era,  dating  from  the  great 
Duke's  disappearance,  associates  itself  not  only 
with  the  Commander-in-Chief,  Lord  Hardinge, 
also  the  ex -Governor -General  of  India,  but  with 
the  most  distinguished  of  his  staff,  his  right-hand 
man  in  all  important  business,  and  his  assessor  in 
all  military  judgments  and  decisions.  This  was 
Adjutant-General  Wetherall,  remarkable  for  the 
faculty  of  ingratiating  himself  with  the  most  arbi- 
trary of  military  autocrats  and  of  winning  entire 
confidence  from  his  inferiors  of  every  grade.  The 
entire  body  of  the  Queen's  forces  seemfed  to  him 
an  open  book ;    he  knew  everything  about  the 

ii6 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

moral  and  material  state  of  the  troops  quartered 
in   every    British   barrack   and  at   every  foreign 
station.       He    united    the    gift    of    professional 
omniscience   with   the   power  of  close   and  con- 
vincing statement  that  made  his  dispatches  and 
the   general   orders   drawn  up  under  his   chief's 
supervision  literary  models  for  two  generations  of 
officers.     Queen  Victoria's  letter  to  Lady  Raglan 
on  her  husband's  death  in  the  June  of  1855  has 
been  justly  called  a  perfect  specimen  of  episto- 
lary English.      The  general  order  produced  by 
the     same      melancholy     event,      prepared     by 
Wetherall  for  Lord  Hardinge's  approval,  deserves 
praise  scarcely  less  high.     There  could  not  have 
been  a  more  salutary  and  serviceable  combina- 
tion than  that  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  and 
the  Adjutant -General.      Hardinge  had  displayed 
the    utmost    gallantry    in    the    Peninsular    War. 
Twice    wounded,    at    Vimiera    and    Vittoria,    he 
brought  back  with  him  not  only  brilliant  experi- 
ence, but  the  hard-and-fast  opinions  common  to 
his   school,  a  belief  in  old  traditions,  and,  not- 
withstanding his  real  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the 
rank  and  file,  a  decided  prejudice  against  sweep- 
ing reforms,  though  not  in  quite  the  same  degree 
as    Lord    Raglan.       The    Commander-in-Chief 
never  missed  attendance  at  the  War  Office  com- 
mittees,   which    always    included    at    least    one 

117 


Great  Victorians 

Cabinet  Minister  with  one  military  or  naval  officer 
of  first-rate  experience  and  authority.  Lord 
Hardinge  had  already  fallen  once  or  twice  a 
little  out  of  favour  at  the  Court  for  filling  military 
commands  independently  of  the  Government,  and 
without,  as  Prince  Albert  complained,  any  refer- 
ence to  the  Queen.  In  the  May  of  1854  he  was 
much  annoyed  by  the  constant  complaints  about 
tents  at  the  scene  of  war  being  uninhabitable 
from  lack  of  proper  equipments.  **  Surely  there 
could  be  no  better  proof  of  our  soldiers  being  well 
looked  after  than  the  French  complaint  that  the 
English  had  tents,  gear,  and  every  comfort.  In 
the  Peninsula  they  had  no  tents  at  all  till  the  Duke 
got  them  a  year  or  two  before  the  end  of  the  war. 
And  now,  at  this  early  stage  of  the  present 
struggle,  the  demand  was  not  only  for  tents  but 
for  chairs  inside  them  I  " 

The  truth  is,  by  the  year  1854  Lord  Hardinge's 
susceptibilities  had  become  morbidly  developed. 
No  great  proconsul  had  ever  enjoyed  mbre  keenly 
the  feting  by  Society  and  the  masses  which 
awaited  him  on  his  return.  He  had  been  the 
hero  of  a  thousand  country  houses,  and  a  promi- 
nent figure  in  some  of  the  best  anecdotes  of  the 
country-house  season.  Such  was  the  character- 
istic utterance  credited  to  Mrs.  Disraeli,  after- 
wards  Viscountess   Beaconsfield,  and  sometimes 

Ii8 


Prom  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

more  impulsive  than  felicitous  in  her  remarks. 
At  a  house  where  the  Disraelis  were  staying  Lord 
Hardinge  happened  to  occupy  the  next  room. 
At  the  breakfast-table  next  morning  Mrs. 
Disraeli  said  :  *'  Oh,  Lord  Hardinge,  am  I  not 
the  most  fortunate  of  women?  Might  I  not  well 
say  to  myself,  as  I  did  on  waking,  *  Surely 
I  am  in  luck  to  have  been  sleeping  between 
the  greatest  orator  and  the  greatest  warrior  of 
the  day  !  '  "  Lady  Hardinge  did  not  seem  to 
appreciate  the  point  of  this  pleasing  little  bit  of 
prattle  as  much  as  the  rest  of  the  company. 

Lord  Hardinge  showed  himself  a  true  type, 
not  only  of  the  Wellingtonian  officer,  but  of  the 
Anglo-Indian  magnate.  Men  of  calibre  and 
achievements  far  inferior  to  his,  returning  from 
posts  of  authority  in  our  Asiatic  Empire  to  their 
native  land,  have  seldom  been  famous  for  any 
faculty  of  self-effacement.  Whether  soldiers  or 
civilians,  lay  or  clerical,  ex-doctors  or  field-mar- 
shals, they  have  been  apt  to  bring  with  them 
their  autocratic  manner  and  their  dictatorial  habit 
of  speech,  carrying  themselves,  whether  entering 
a  public  conveyance  or  a  lady's  drawing-room, 
as  men  whose  word  is  law,  or  as  demi-gods  whose 
breasts  are  ablaze  with  orders.  This  infirmity 
was  not  so   conspicuous  in   Hardinge   as  in  thie 

ex -officers  of  native  regiments,  the  competition 

119 


Great  Victorians 

*'  wallahs  '*  and  the   ex-*'  collectors  "  of  a  later 
day.     To  the  last,  however,  he  could  not  always 
restrain   within    politic   limits    a    love    of   power 
almost  feminine  in  its  intensity,  and  a  habit  of 
self-assertion  such  as  might  have  been  pardon- 
able in  smaller  men,  but  was  singularly  indiscreet 
and  suicidal  in  himself.     He  had  not  been  back 
in  England  more  than  a  year  or  two  when  certain 
newspaper  and  other  irresponsible   criticism's  of 
his  Punjab  settlement  stung  him  into  open  dis- 
plays of   intolerance  and  resentment  that  drew 
forth  words  of  kindly  caution  from  Wellington, 
productive  of  no  permanent  effect.     During  the 
Crimean  War  he  was  at  daggers  drawn  with  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle— indeed,  with  all  the  Cabinet, 
Under-Secretaries   of    State,    and   private    secre- 
taries.     This   chronic  vexation  of  spirit   at  last 
defied  all  efforts  to  control,  and  reacted  disas- 
trously upon  his  health.     On  July  8,   1856,  the 
Queen    reviewed    the   troops    at   Aldershot,    and 
made  them  a  speech.     Lord  Hardinge,  not,  as 
has    been    said,    while   giving  a    subordinate   an 
order  or  a  rebuke,  but  while  talking  to  his  Sove- 
reign, was  seized  in  her  presence  with  a  fit.     He 
was  brought  back  to  London  almost,  as  it  seemed, 
moribund.      Gradually   he  became   well  enough 
for  removal  to  Tunbridge  Wells.     Here,  at  South 
Park,  on  September  24,   1856,  the  end  came. 

120 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

Charges    and    counter -charges,    censures    and 
recriminations,     are     as     inseparable     from    the 
councils   of   war  as   jealousies  and   competitions 
from   the    conduct   of   rival   chiefs    in   the   field. 
These,  however  ruffled  might  be  his  own  spirit, 
Hardinge  did  his  best,  often  successfully,  to  com- 
pose.     The   relations  between  some  among  the 
most    famous    of    his    contemporaries,    of    rank 
scarcely  lower   than  his   own,  were   marked  by 
an  entire  freedom  from  personal  animosities^  open 
or  suppressed.     The  "  Bayard  of  India,"  as  Sir 
James  Outram  has  been  rightly  called,   showed 
qualities  that  made  his  whole  life  a  morally  en- 
nobling lesson.     Offered  in  the  Mutiny  the  chief 
commatid  by  Lord  Canning,  he  said,  '*  The  work 
was  begun  by  Havelock,  let  him  have  the  crown- 
ing  glory    of   the    achievement."      Outram   had 
taken  his   part   in  the  relief  of  Lucknow,   only 
afterwards  to  find  himself  besieged  there.     The 
second   relief  of   Lucknow   brought  into  promi- 
nence probably  the  best  remembered  of  the  great 
soldiers  who  adorned  that  period. 

In  1859  the  return  to  England  of  Sir  Colin 
Campbell  as  Eield-Marshal  Lord  Clyde  ac- 
quainted his  countrymen  of  all  sorts  and  con- 
ditions at  home  with  the  pleasantest  as  well  as 
the  noblest  specimen  of  an  Anglo-Indian  celebrity 

that  they  had  ever  seen.     He  mixed  freely  with 

121 


Great  Victorians 

every  class  in  town  and  country.      Simple,  un- 
affected in  his  manner  and  tastes,  he  impressed 
high  and  low  alike  as  genuinely  unconscious  of 
his  own  greatness.     The  delight  of  a  schoolboy 
on   his   home-coming   for   the  holidays,   and  his 
eager  curiosity  for  the  welfare  of  the  rabbits  or 
guinea-pigs  that  he  has  not  seen  and  the  pony 
he  has   not  ridden   since  the   beginning  of  last 
half,  were  recalled  to  one  by  the  beaming  grati- 
fication which  this  fine  old  man,  straight  and  erect 
in  figure  as  a  youth,  with  his  short-cut  hair  stand- 
ing up  on  his  head,  did  not  care  to  repress  at 
finding  himself  in  the  company  of  the  friends  of 
the  first  Indian  Viceroy,  Lord  Canning,  who  had 
taken  good  care  that  all  doors  should  be  open  to 
the  returned  hero.     I  have  heard  from  those  who 
stood  by  when  he  took  his  seat  on  the  crimson 
leather  benches  of  the  unconcealed  pleasure  with 
which   he   viewed  every  detail  in   the  gorgeous 
decorations  of  the  chamber,  and  showed  his  ac- 
quaintance with  the  doings   of  those  among  its 
leaders  who,  as  some  would  have  thought,  would 
have  been  little  more  than  names  to  him.     For 
how  could  these  personages  possibly  be  anything 
else  to  the  Glasgow  carpenter's  son,  who  only  left 
his  school  at  Gosport  in    1808  to  serve  on  the 
Walcheren    Expedition    of   the    next   year,    went 
through  the  whole  Peninsular  War,  then  took  p^rt 

122 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

in  the  expedition  to  the  United  States,  and  who 
had  no  sooner  ended  his  Sikh  campaigns  than 
he  hastened  off  to  the  Crimea  in  command  of  the 
Highland  Brigade  and  won  the  victory  of  the 
Alma?  "  Yes,"  he  said  simply,  *'  the  last  time  I 
was  in  London  the  new  Houses  of  Parliament 
were  finished,  and  I  think  open,  but  I  never  went 
over  them  till  now.  And  then  among  the  faces 
I  recognized  several  pointed  out  to  me  a  genera- 
tion ago,  when  I  was  first  brought  on  a  country 
cousin's  visit  to  London.  Lord  Derby  with  the 
eagle  beak  and  the  eyes  flashing  fire  is  quite 
unchanged,  and  that  is  Lord  Granville  ;  I  should 
have  known  him  from  his  portraits.  I  never 
miss,  and  no  one  ought  to  miss,  reading  his 
speeches ;  for  whatever  their  subject  or  their 
length  there  is  always  something  chivalrous  in 
them.  And  that  handsome  man  yonder.  Lord 
Sydney  !  Ah,  I  thought  so  ;  he  married  Lord 
Anglesey's  daughter." 

In  the  provinces  he  did  not  confine  himself 
to  the  dwellings  of  the  rich  and  great ;  and 
wherever  he  went  he  brought  smiles  and  joy 
with  him .  One  used  to  hear  of  him  in  my  earlier 
days  as  enjoying  above  all  things  a  romp  with 
children  in  the  haymaking  season. 

Among  the  great  Anglo-Indian  soldiers,  my 
impressions  of  whom  come  not  from  tradition  but 

123 


Great  Victorians 

personal  knowledge,  the  first  I  will  mention  is 
Sir  Donald  Stewart.  During  some  of  the  years 
between  1870  and  1880  the  present  writer 
happened  to  be  living  in  Sussex  Place,  South 
Kensington,  quite  close  to  Stewart's  house  in 
Harrington  Gardejns,  i^-nd  was  a  constant  walker 
in  Kensington  Gardens,  often  having  for  my 
companion  a  young  friend,  a  well-known  Anglo- 
Indian  civilian's  son.  We  met  almost  daily  a 
noticeable  figure,  whose  bronze  complexion  and 
heavily  hanging  moustache  proclaimed  him  to 
be  what  young  Nadab,  the  improvisatore  at  the 
"  Cave  of  Harmony  "  in  '*  The  Newcomes,"  would 
have  called  "a  military  gent  from  Hindostan." 
That  which  chiefly  struck  one  was  not  the 
strongly  knit,  supple  frame,  retaining  on  the 
threshold  of  old  age  the  vigour  and  ease  of 
youthful  movement,  but  the  extraordinarily  strong 
Norse  features,  which  might  have  belonged  to  a 
Viking,  but  were  really  those  of  a  Scotch  High- 
lander with  a  Scandinavian  strain  in  his  blood. 
"  I  think,"  said  my  young  companion  to  me  one 
day,  "  this  must  be  an  old  friend  of  my  father  ; 
I  will  go  up  to  him  and  find  out."  Suiting  the 
action  to  the  word,  the  lad  was  off,  and  the  Eield- 
Marshal,  for  such  he  proved  to  be,  asked  the 
boy  his  father's  name.  Hearing  it,  he  said  in  the 
kindest  voice  imaginable,  '*  I  might  have  known, 

124 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

for  I  recall  your  father's  face  and  see  a  likeness 
to  it  in  your  own."     The  accidental  acquaintance 
with  Sir  Donald  Stewart  thus  begun  grew  by  his 
courtesy  into  friendship.   '*  A  sublime  sylvan  plea- 
saunce  superior  to  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  and 
inferior  only  in  extent  to  the  chestnut  forest  of 
Anatolia !  "       So     Disraeli    had    described    the 
stretch  of  turf  and  foliage  surrounding  William 
Ill's   palace   in  the   "old  Court   suburb."     The 
description    took    Sir    Donald's    fancy ;    he   had 
not,    he   said,   heard   it   before.      **  In   fact,"   he 
quietly  added,  "  my  occupations  have  interfered 
a  good  deal  with  my  reading."     Here  our  occa- 
sional strolls  together  continued  till  Sir  Donald's 
return  to  India  in    1880,  followed,  as  that  was, 
by  his  appointment,  first  to  the  Viceroy's  Council 
at  Calcutta,  secondly  to  the  Indian  Commander- 
ship-in-Chief,  held  by  him  from  April    1881  to 
November    1885.      Then  I  saw  him  once  more 
as  one  among  the  Secretary  of  State's  Councillors 
at   the    India   Office.      By  this   time  his    Indian 
career  was  beginning  to  be  seen  at  home  in  just 
perspective   and   its   real   greatness.      His    com- 
mand of  our  troops  in  Afghanistan  after  Cava- 
gnari's  death,  from  September  1879  to  the  end  of 
the  war^  had  been  an  almost  unknown  chapyter 
of  history,  owing  to  a  modesty  amounting  to  self- 
^,bnegation,    and    an    almost    nervous    dread    of 

J25 


Great  Victorians 

seeming  to  share  the  popular  passion  of  self- 
advertisement.  Such  were  the  ruling  principles 
of  his  course  from  the  day  on  which  he  first  came 
to  notice  in  the  siege  of  Delhi  in  1857. 
Bracketed  with  the  Lawrences  and  other  great 
men  of  that  period,  he  disclaimed  the  idea  of 
being  a  political  soldier  of  the  Henry  Lawrence 
type.  The  only  civil  post  he  ever  held  was  the 
Chief  Commissionership  of  the  Andamans  before 
his  appointment  to  the  command  of  the  troops 
in  Southern  Afghanistan  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  in  1878.  There  could  be  no  better  summing 
up  of  his  character  than  was  given  by  the  present 
Lord  Bryce,  then  Oxford  Professor  of  Civil  Law, 
when  he  received  his  D.C.L.  in  1886  :  **  One  of 
the  first  of  living  generals,  whose  greatness  would 
be  better  known  were  it  not  for  his  singular 
modesty  as  well  as  dignity  of  character." 

When,  as  already  described,  I  first  saw  him  in 
Kensington  Gardens  during  the  early  eighties, 
his  presence  was  very  striking.  Throughout 
his  later  years  his  appearance  had  become 
familiar,  not  only  to  the  entire  home  public  but 
to  many  of  his  colonial  fellow-subjects.  A  keen 
sportsman,  equally  good  with  rod  and  gun,  with 
fur  or  feather,  he  visited  his  old  school  friend. 
Lord  Mount  Stephen,  in  Canada,  and  delighted 
the  sporting  experts  gathered  to  meet  him  by 

126 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

the  boyish  enthusiasm  with  which  he  entered  into 
all  their  pursuits,  and  the  high  satisfaction  with 
which,  from  a  difficult  piece  of  water,  he  landed 
his  first  salmon. 

There  are  some  still  living  who  can  remember 
the  zest  with  which,  during  his  last  years,  he 
handled,  on  most  afternoons,  the  cue  in  the 
billiard-rooms  of  the  Senior  or  the  Athenaeum. 
But  the  sight  that  dwelt  longest  in  the  popular 
memory  was  that  of  the  old  Field-Marshal  in  the 
Chelsea  Hospital  garden  on  a  summer  afternoon, 
entertaining,  not  only  his  personal  friends  but 
some  of  the  veteran  rank  and  file  who  had  fought 
under  his  command.  How  this  and  other  signs 
of  interest  in  their  welfare  were  appreciated  might 
be  gathered  from  the  beaming  expression  of  plea- 
sure and  pride  with  which,  at  the  Jubilee  of  1887, 
the  Chelsea  Pensioners  massed  together  on  Con- 
stitution Hill,  and  watched  their  Governor  in  his 
Field-Marshal's  uniform  ride  past.  **  Share  and 
share  alike  "  had  been  his  motto  in  ensuring  the 
comforts  of  the  rank  and  file  during  his  cam- 
paigns. That  formed  the  practical  expression 
of  the  opinion  experience  had  taught  him'  about 
the  British  soldier.  "  Some  of  them,"  he  would 
say,  "  may  occasionally  take  a  little  too  much  to 
drink   and   be    wild ;   but   see    them    on   a   long 

march  without  food  or  rest,  see  them  in  a  tight 

127 


Great  Victorians 

corner  with  only  a  few  rags  to  their  backs  and 
soleless  boots,  and  you  see  then  that  the  British 
soldier  is  the  finest  man  in  the  world." 

Spartant  nactus  es,  hanc  exorna.  During  the 
nineteenth  century's  second  half  Whitehall  spoke 
of  Free  Trade  as  Cobdenism,  and  looked  upon 
it  as  an  unlovely  Sparta  whose  embellishment  was 
next  door  to  impossible.  It  found,  however, 
its  ornament  in  another  Anglo-Indian  soldier  of 
the  Donald  Stewart  period,  trained  in  a  wider 
and  more  variously  cosmopolitan  school  than  that 
of  Sir  Donald  Stewart  himself.  As  regards  per- 
sonal antecedents,  official  occupation,  personal 
appearance,  accomplishments,  and  tastes.  Sir 
Louis  Mallet  personified  a  contrast  to  the  popular 
notion  of  Cobdenism  and  everything  connected 
with  the  Manchester  school.  Yet  it  was  as  a 
representative  of  this  school  that  he  was  appointed 
to  the  Secretary  of  State's  Council  at  the  India 
Office  in  1870.  Before  then  he  had  shaken  off 
the  Toryism  of  family  traditions  and  youthful 
surroundings,  and  had  become  Cob  den's  asso- 
ciate in  arranging  the  Anglo-French  Commercial 
Treaty,  as  well  as  other  conventions  of  a  like 
character  in  which  England  figured  as  one  of 
the  principals.  Sir  Louis  Mallet's  father,  the 
French  publicist,  Mallet  du  Pan,  had  fled  to  Eng- 
land during  the  Erench  Revolution^  reached  it 

128 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

while  William  Pitt  was  Premier,  found  in  that 
statesman  a  patron  and  protector,  and  received 
from  him  a  place  in  a  Government  office  for, his 
son.  All  that  youth's  first  prep>ossessions  were 
naturally  anti-Whig  and    anti-Liberal. 

His  French  origin  gave  him'  a  grace,  a  finish 
of  manner,  and  a  lightness  of  touch  which  his 
official  education,  at  Whitehall  first,  and  on  his 
errands  with  Cobden  afterwards,  imj)[roved  into 
genuine  diplomatic  tact.  Abroad  and  at  home 
he  had  been  brought  into  contact,  more  or  less 
close,  with  the  best -known  characters  of  his  time. 
While  in  Paris  he  had  dined  with  Lord  Hertford, 
the  original  of  Thackeray's  Lord  Steyne,  at  his 
villa,  *'  La  Bagatelle,"  and  had  heard  one  of  his 
most  characteristic  remarks.  Lord  Robert  Sey- 
mour had  asked  him  a  question  which  for  some 
reason  he  resented,  to  meet  with  the  rejoinder  : 
"  Pray,  would  you  have  the  goodness  to  tell  me 
whether  you  are  my  father,  my  grandfather, 
my  uncle,  or  my  maiden  aunt?  Good -night." 
Another  Parisian  experience  of  Sir  Louis  Mallet 
was  of  a  more  tragical  kind.  He  had  been  dining 
with  a  friend  in  a  private  room  at  the  Caf6  Riche. 
Afterwards,  when  on  the  landing  outside  and 
preparing  to  descend,  another  diner  in  an  adjoin- 
ing apartment  lost  his  footing  at  the  head  of  the 
highly  polished  stairs,  fell  down,  and,  before  any 

129  I 


Great  Victorians 

help  could  be  rendered,  had  fallen  on  the  back 
of  his  head  (against  every  other  stair  till  the 
ground  floor  was  reached.  There  Mallet  saw  the 
grandest  nobleman  of  his  day,  the  Duke  of 
Hamilton,  taken  up  stone  dead  and  carried  off. 
During  his  English  travels,  chiefly  in  Lancashire 
and  the  north,  he  stayed  with  Sir  John  Potter,  a 
great  Manchester  personage,  and  met  among  the 
company  Benjamin  Disraeli.  When  the  guests 
had  gone  Mallet  heard  the  future  Lord  Beacons - 
field  say  to  his  host :  "  Most  well-to-do,  highly 
principled,  and  worthy  gentlemen  all  your 
friends,  my  dear  Sir  John,  are— in  fact,  just  the 
sort  of  persons  out  of  whom  clever  fellows,  like' 
me,  make  our  fortune." 

Commercial  consideration  had  placed  Mallet  in 
the  Secretary  of  State's  Indian  Council.  A  few 
years  later  this  select  body  was  joined  by  General 
Sir  Henry  Norman  as  the  military  representative 
of  the  Strachey  and  Lawrence  school,  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  *'  forward  and  scientific  frontier  " 
policy  in  favour  with  the  first  Earl  of  Lytton  and 
Lord  Beaconsfield.  Norman's  death  removed  a 
man  who,  like  other  Anglo-Indian  members  of 
his  class,  combined  administrative  with  military 
genius  in  a  degree  that  brought  him,  from  Glad- 
stone, a  pressing  offer  to  undertake  the  Indian 
Viceroyship.     Since  his  death  while  Governor  of 

130 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

Chelsea  Hospital  there  has  been  nearly  a  clean 
sweep  of  the  later  military  generation  for  which 
the  warrior  representatives  of  their  age,  now  re- 
called, acted  as  forerunners.  To  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  and  officers  trained  in  his  traditions 
the  private  soldier  was  naturally  and  necessarily 
a  blackguard.  The  greater  his  courage  and 
efficiency,  the  greater  his  blackguardism.  There- 
fore in  the  interest  of  the  Army  itself  and  the 
nation  for  which  its  victories  were  won,  no  serious 
attempt  at  improving  the  condition,  moral  or 
material,  of  the  rank  and  file  could  be  made  suc- 
cessfully, or  need  be  made  at  all.  Other  Generals 
of  eighteenth-century  birth  held  much  the  same 
opinion.  Cardigan,  it  has  been  seen,  acted  on 
the  principle  that  it  was  not  enough  for  the  British 
private  to  be  blackguardized  by  circumstances, 
but  that,  like  his  executioners,  he  must  be  brutal- 
ized by  the  lash.  To  this  effect,  at  least,  the 
Army  disciplinarians  of  a  later  and  humaner 
school,  just  mentioned,  summed  up  the  theory 
and  practice  of  their  predecessors .  After  Raglan 
came  Hardinge,  who,  helped  by  Adjutant -General 
Wetherall,  showed  a  disposition  to  a  milder 
regime.  The  reaction  from  the  old  ferocity  was 
carried  farther  by  the  great  commanders  during 
the  Mutiny,  the  Lawrences,  Sir  Donald  Stewart, 
and  pre-eminently  Lord  Roberts,  who  in    1858 

131 


Great  Victorians 

won  his  V.C.  for  killing  single-handed  a  success- 
sion    of    Sepoys    intent    on    attacking    the    little 
stronghold  which  sheltered  English  women  and 
children.      My  acquaintance  with  Lord  Roberts 
began  in    1882,   on  a  Channel  steamer  outward 
bound  between  Folkestone  and  Boulogne.     The 
same   boat    carried  also   Lord  Salisbury,    whose 
loathing  of  the  shortest  sea  voyage  amounted  to 
positive  terror.     Some  of  those  feelings  seemed, 
for  that  occasion  only,  shared  by  his  illustrious 
fellow -voyager  ;   or  it  may  be  that  Lord  Roberts' 
kindly   solicitude   for   his   famous   friend   caused 
him  to  remain  on  deck  by  his  side  while  the  good 
ship  rocked  to  and  fro  like  a  swing  at  a  fair,  with 
breaker -washed   deck.      At    any   rate,   there    the 
two  men  stood,  each  clasping  with  his  hands  two 
strong,    upright   iron   poles,   one  on   either  side, 
seldom  giving  a  look  to  the  sea,  but  accommo- 
dating their  bodies,  after  the  manner  I  have  de- 
scribed, to  the  movement  of  the  ship.     Neither 
showed    any    sign    of    sea-sickness;     for    a   few 
seconds  Lord  Roberts,  however,  had  a  tired  look. 
I  handed  him  a  glass  of  water.     In  the  true  Sir 
Philip  Sidney  spirit  he  passed  it  on  to  Lord  Salis- 
bury, as  who  would  say,  *'  Thy  necessity  is  greater 
than  mine."  Older  than  Wolseley  by  a  single  year, 
Roberts  became  the  first  famous  officer  who  syste- 
matically concerned  himself  with  lifting  Tommy 

132 


From  Wellington  to   Wolseley 

Atkins  to  a  higher  plane  of  social  and  spiritual 
civilization.  By  precept  and  example  Wolseley 
laboured  in  the  same  direction.  These  two  great 
Generals  of  our  time  also  resembled  each  other, 
not  only  in  their  professional  qualifications  and 
reforming  zeal,  but  in  their  opportunities  of  show- 
ing their  capacity  for  command.  Sir  George 
Hamley,  who  had  done  as  much  as  either  towards 
creating  the  British  ofiicer  of  the  new  school, 
never  had  the  chance  of  doing  justice  to  his 
genius  as  a  captain  in  the  field.  This,  too,  was 
the  lot  of  Sir  John  Adye,  Lintorn  Simmons,  Lyne- 
doch,  and  Hill.  It  is  an  old  saying  that  a  soldier 
should  have  no  politics.  This  in  1878  meant 
that  he  must  be  above  all  suspicion  of  Liberal 
proclivities.  Adye  had  the  misfortune  to  stand 
high  in  the  confidence  of  Lord  Carnarvon  and 
Lord  Derby,  who  left  the  Disraeli  Cabinet  during 
the  Jingo  epidemic  of  that  year. 

Wolseley's  position,  rise,  and  progress  cannot 
be  rightly  understood  without  recalling  what 
happened  in  Pall  Mall  and  Whitehall  from  1868 
to  1874.  During  those  years  the  War  Ofiice  was 
controlled  by  one  of  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first, 
of  those  who  were  to  fulfil  Benjamin  Jowett's 
ambition  of  seeing  the  British  Empire  at  home 
or  abroad,  at  war  or  at  peace,  run  by  his  own 
pupils . 

133 


Great  Victorians 

This  was  Cardwell,  the  most  famous  of  sur- 
viving Peelites,  whom,  during  my  Oxford  days, 
I  had  known,  chiefly  at  a  distance,  as  a  BalUol 
Don,  but  had  also  had  for  a  companion  in  my 
rides  when  visiting  friends  in  that  part  of  Oxford- 
shire where  Cardwell  himself  had  some  private 
property,  and  which  almost  borders  on  Warren 
Hastings'  Worcestershire  Daylesford.  Cardwell 
had  not  quite  as  short  and  sharp  a  way  with 
young  men  as  his  Winchester  contemporary, 
Robert  Lowe.  Equal  to  him',  and  even  to  the 
chief  ornament  of  that  studious  set,  Linwood, 
in  width  and  thoroughness  of  classical  reading, 
he  combined  with  it  a  smattering  of  science  and 
insight  into  European  affairs  then  seldom  pre- 
sented by  Oxford  common-rooms.  CardwelFs 
manners,  indeed,  were  stiff  and  donnish  ;  they 
often  tried  the  loyalty  of  his  Oxford  constituents  ; 
they  may  well  have  had  something  to  do  with 
prejudicing  the  class  with  which  he  had  officially 
to  do  against  the  reforms  he  was  to  introduce  and 
administer.  In  1871,  the  third  year  of  Card- 
well's  War  Secretaryship,  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan'sj 
long  efforts  for  the  abolition  of  "  purchase " 
achieved  success.  The  next  year  complete  effect 
was  given  to  the  Army  education  proposals  of 
1868.  The  revolutionizing  of  the  regimental 
system    began.      Gladstonianism   and   its  works. 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

was  the  complaint  at  every  military  club  and 
mess,  had  closed  a  military  career  against  that 
class  which,  in  a  hundred  campaigns,  had  shown 
it  could  fight  as  well  as  play.  Henceforth  the 
helmeted,  goggled  professor  of  the  Prussian 
variety  would  supersede  the  athletic  and  sport- 
ing British  officer.  Farewell,  therefore,  for  ever 
the  dashing  leaders  of  foot  and  horse  who  had 
learned  how  to  lead  their  men  to  victory  on  the 
playing  fields  of  Eton. 

The  future  conqueror  of  Tel-el-Kebir  and  those 
about  him  accepted  the  fresh  regime,  a  democrat- 
ized War  Office  and  a  transformed  soldiery. 
Promotion  by  merit  had  replaced  that  by  **  pur- 
chase." Long  service  had  gone  out,  linked  bat- 
talions had  come  in.  The  officers  of  the  new 
order  soon  showed  that  their  skill  in  wielding 
the  pen  was  not  greater  than  their  power  of 
handling  the  sword  or  gun.  Henry  Brackenbury 
and  Evelyn  Wood  were  acknowledged  as  repre- 
sentative specimens  of  the  order  which  had 
opened  when  military  commissions  ceased  to  be 
matters  of  merchandise. 

At  this  present  time  (December  191 5), 
since  Henry  Brackenbury's  death  in  the  early 
summer  of  last  year,  the  only  two  members  of 
the  Wolseley  school  left  are  Sir  Evelyn  Wood 
and  Sir  Coleridge  Grove.     The  precedent  in  the 

135 


Great  Victorians 

culture  and  intellect  characteristic  of  the  Wol- 
seley  school  was  set  by  the  men  who  called  it 
into  being,  or  at  least  made  it  possible.  Sir 
Charles  Trevelyan  married  Macaulay's  daughter  ; 
their  son,  having  just  missed  being  senior  classic 
at  Cambridge,  has  long  since  won  equal  dis- 
tinction in  parliamentary  or  official  life  and  in 
letters  ;  Cardwell,  like  his  early  chief,  Sir  Robert 
Peel  (one  of  whose  trustees  he  became),  and  his 
later  chief,  Gladstone,  took  a  double  first. 
Among  the  soldiers  of  the  two  surviving 
Wolseleyites,  Sir  Coleridge  Grove,  a  Balliol 
exhibitioner,  won  a  mathematical  first  both  in 
Moderations  and  in  Finals ;  and,  but  for  his 
preoccupation  in  the  official  field,  would  have 
commanded  with  his  pen  a  distinction  like  that 
bestowed  on  his  old  associate  in  arms,  Wood, 
by  his  "The  Crimea  in  1854-94,*'  "Cavalry  at 
Waterloo,"  "  From  Midshipman  to  Field-Mar- 
shal,'* and  "The  Revolt  in  Hindustan." 

There  were  heroes  before  Agamemnon ;  and 
the  world  had  not  to  wait  for  the  writing  soldier 
in  the  first  rank  of  authorship  till  Wolseley  and 
his  men  came,  or  to  find  them  exclusively  within 
those  limits.  Something  might  be  said  in  favour 
of  the  earliest  war  correspondent  having  been, 
not  Crabb  Robinson  but  Xenophon,  attached  to 
the  Persian  Headquarters  Staff,  who  wrote  "  The 

136 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

Anabasis."  The  Attic  country  gentleman  whose 
deli vt ranee  by  Socrates  at  the  battle  of  Delium 
preserved  him  to  write  '*  The  Retreat  of  the  Ten 
Thousand,"  had  for  the  first  of  his  descendants 
with  the  English  pen  the  historian  of  the  Penin- 
sular War.  In  the  literary  succession  which 
followed,  Roberts  and  Wolseley  had  the  most 
conspicuous,  but  not  the  only  places. ^  Before 
Wolseley's  men  became  a  power  in  the  Press  the 
two  Hoziers,  John  and  Henry,  were  Saturday 
Review-ers  under  Douglas  Cook,  and  had  been 
welcomed  into  the  comity  of  Printing  House 
Square  by  Delane  :  Henry,  indeed,  with  occa- 
sional breaks,  was  attached  to  the  great  news- 
paper from  1866  onwards,  and  was  one  of  its 
regular  correspondents  during  the  Austro-Prus- 
sian  and  the  Franco -Gerrnan  Wars.  During  this 
period  there  were  three  noticeable  brothers,  each 
connected  with  the  Army,  two  distinguished  by 
active  service.  These  were  Sir  William  Eraser, 
whose  chambers  in  St.  James's  Street  were  a 
miniature  museum  of  curios,  autographs,  first 
editions,     presentation     volumes    from,     among 

^  Wolseley's  books,  "  Narrative  of  the  War  with  China  in 
i860,"  "The  Soldier's  Pocket-Book,"  "Field  Manoeuvres," 
"Marley  Castle,"  "Life  of  Marlborough,"  "The  Decline  and 
Fall  of  Napoleon,"  were  published  from  1862  to  1895.  Roberts' 
books,  "The  Rise  of  Wellington"  and  "Forty-One  Years  in 
India,"  were  published  from  1895  to  1897. 


Great  Victorians 

others,  Thackeray  and  Bulwer-Lytton ;  and 
Charles  Fraser,  who  had  brought  back  the  Vic- 
toria Cross  from  his  Crimean  and  Indian  services. 
The  other  member  of  the  family  was  Keith,  the 
handsomest  of  these  brothers,  in  whom  Ouida, 
as  she  might  be  excused  for  doing,  recognized 
the  genuine  original,  not  only  of  her  own  typical 
beau  sabrear,  but  of  the  detrimental  heroes  of 
Court  and  camp  whom  she  first  knew  in  the 
pages  of  her  master,  the  author  of  "  Guy  Living- 
stone." Keith  once  commanded  the  "  Blues," 
and,  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  during  my 
editorship,  wrote  one  or  two  articles  about  the 
uses  of  cavalry,  extensively  translated  on  the 
Continent,  and  studied  almost  as  a  textbook  in 
Vienna  and  Berlin.  The  eldest,  the  baronet, 
moving  from  his  schooldays  to  the  spirit  of  the 
age,  had  become  the  pioneer  of  its  taste  for  old 
china,  bric-a-brac,  curiosity  collecting  generally, 
for  compiling  autobiographies  and  memoirs,  and 
for  dabbling  in  poetry  with  other  forms  of  belles 
lettres .  The  second  brother,  Charles,  shared  with 
Sir  Henry  Calcraft  the  distinction  of  being  a 
typically  consummate  man  of  the  world,  an  oracle 
on  all  social  subjects,  a  model  and  a  teacher  in 
the  arts  of  fashionable  success  and  the  comj>o- 
sition  of  fashionable  feuds.  No  one  man  of  his 
day  prevented  the  unmaking  of  more  marriages, 

138 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

or  by  his  skill  in  social  diplomacy  arranged 
more  family  quarrels,  or  timed  these  good  offices 
so  happily  that  the  oil  fell  upon  the  troubled 
waters  exactly  at  the  psychological  moment. 
**  Charles  for  courage,"  it  used  to  be  said,  "  Keith 
for  beauty,  and  William  for  books."  Their  old 
Eton  master,  W.  G.  Cookesley,  viewed  these  kins- 
men somewhat  differently.  "  Charles,"  he  once 
said,  **  had  more  of  sound  literary  taste  in  his 
little  finger  than  William  in  his  whole  body,  and, 
unlike  William  again,  had  assimilated  as  well  as 
remembered  both  the  sound  and  sense  of  his 
school  reading,  whether  in  the  form  or  in  the 
library." 

The  intellectual,  social,  and  professional  pre- 
cedent of  the  Frasers  further  fulfilled  itself  in 
their  Eton  contemporary,  Henry  Brackenbury, 
Lord  Wolseley's  right-hand  man,  not  only  in  the 
field,  but  in  co-operating  with  Evelyn  Wood, 
Coleridge  Grove,  and  Maurice  to  quicken  and 
train,  with  the  pen  as  well  as  the  sword,  during 
the  seventies,  the  gradually  reviving  zeal  of 
soldiers  for  their  vocation.  Such  were  the  per- 
sonal forces  in  the  Army  that,  personified 
conspicuously  by  Brackenbury,  replaced  the 
dandy  warriors  of  Knightsbridge,  Aldershot, 
and  Windsor  by  a  Kitchener,  a  Smith-Dorrien, 
a     French,     and     a     Douglas     Haig.        When 

139 


Great  Victorians 

I  first  came  to  know  him  intimately  he  had  just 
been  engaged  by  Thomas  Hamber  to  write  in 
the  Standard  the  diary  of  the  Eranco-Prussian 
War.  In  those  days  I  was  myself  told  off  for 
a  daily  leader  on  non -military  topics  of  the  hour, 
and  had  every  opportunity  of  watching  on  the 
spot  the  thoroughness  of  Brackenbury's  methods. 
To  be  within  call  at  a  moment's  notice  of  Shoe 
Lane  he  had  taken  rooms  at  the  Cannon  Street 
Hotel.  There^,  on  the  telegraphic  data  brought 
him  from  the  office,  he  broke  the  neck  of  his 
article.  Before  closing  up  he  came  himself  to 
the  premises  to  embody  in  the  final  paragraphs 
the  dispatches  from  the  seat  of  war  which  came 
pouring  in  almost  to  the  time  when  the  paper  went 
to  press .  Skill  in  unravelling  the  telegraphic  con- 
fusion and  contradiction  of  the  military  news 
which,  printed  as  it  is  received,  often  tells  the 
public  less  than  nothing,  was  an  art  thoroughly 
mastered  by  all  of  the  Wolseley  school.  Bracken- 
bury  was  among  the  first  to  practise  it  in  perfec- 
tion in  his  Standard  articles.  Something  like 
military  second  sight  was  shown  by  him  when,  in 
the  small  hours  of  August  26,  1870,  he  solved 
the  mystery  of  Bazaine's  movements,  which  had 
puzzled  all  professional  critics,  by  a  real  flash  of 
inspiration.       MacMahon,    he    conjectured,    was 

marching    round    the    Prussian    flank    to    meet 

140 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

Bazaine  before  Metz.  Hamber  had  seen  some- 
thing of  warfare  when  serving  with  the  Swiss 
legion  in  the  Crimea.  He  had  also  a  very  quick 
eye  for  a  good  point.  He  came  into  the  room 
where  I  was  grinding  away  at  my  nightly  leader 
and  exultantly  brandished  Brackenbury's  proof, 
which  he  had  just  read.  *'  This,"  he  exclaimed, 
**  will  be  the  newspaper  hit  of  to-morrow,  and 
will  be  looked  back  upon  as  the  one  Press  pro- 
phecy about  the  war  that  was  fulfilled  !  " 

Popularly  passing  for  a  pure  product  of  the 
Emerald  Isle,  Lord  Wolseley  was  an  Irishman 
only  in  about  the  same  degree  as  his  right-hand 
man  now  recalled.  Dublin,  indeed,  had  given 
him  birth,  but  his  family  belonged  to  Stafford- 
shire. His  leading  pupil's  father,  William 
Brackenbury,  of  Aswarby,  Lincolnshire,  had 
married  an  Irishwoman,  Miss  Maria  Atkinson, 
of  Newry.  A  turn  for  soldiership  was  in  the 
blood  of  the  younger  son  of  that  marriage.  In 
the  fifteenth  century  a  Sir  Robert  Bracken - 
bury  headed  the  Lincolnshire  malcontents  against 
Richard  III.  Before  the  landing  of  Henry  Tudor 
he  rallied  his  country  partisans  round  him  close 
to  the  exact  spot  on  which,  during  the  Bosworth 
fight.  Sir  William  Stanley  placed  the  dead  Plan- 
tagenet's  crown  upon  the  first  King  of  the  new 

dynasty.     Lord  Wolseley  and  Brackenbury  were 

141 


Great  Victorians 

united,  not  only  by  professional  sympathies,  but 
by  certain  similarities  of  temperament,  perhaps 
as  a  result  of  the  Hibernian  blood  in  the  veins  of 
both.  .The  stern  soldier  showed  himself  in  the 
composition  of  each.  But  both  also  in  feeling 
not  less  than  manner  sometimes  revealed  a 
woman's  gentleness,  occasionally  verging  on 
sentimentalism . 

To-day  Sir  Evelyn  Wood  is  the  sole  survivor 
of  a  party  which  in  1894,  on  board  Sir  John 
Pender's  steam  yacht  Electra,  visited  the  Crimea. 
The  voyagers  included,  in  addition  to  Wolseley, 
the  American  Minister,  Bayard,  Lord  Kelvin,  and 
Sir  John  Mowbray.  They  were  approaching  the 
coast  of  Asia  Minor,  and  were  in  sight  of  an 
island  immortalized  by  Virgil.  At  this  moment 
Mowbray  appeared  with  the  quotation  on  his 
lips,  ''Est  in  conspectu  Tenedos  ? "  "I  knew 
you  would  say  so,"  murmured  the  soldier,  "  and 
am  tempted  to  cap  it  with  *  Pereant  qui  ante  nos 
nostra  dixerint.'  "  To  Brackenbury  the  classical 
tag  might  well  enough  have  suggested  itself,  for 
he  had  gone  to  Eton  in  the  same  year  as  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle,  and  stayed  there  with  him 
most  of  his  time ;  and  the  Latin  and  Greek 
phrases  easily  assimilated  by  a  public  school  boy 
seldom  take  leave  of  him  altogether.  But  much  of 
Wolseley's  education  had  been  picked  up  casually, 

142 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

first  from  a  Dublin  day-school,  then  from  home 
tutors,  especially  the  talk  of  his  intelligent  elders. 
His  rare  intellectual  faculties  showed  themselves 
in  no  way  more  strikingly  than  in  his  complete 
triumph  over  his  early  educational  deficiencies. 
No  one  of  his  time,  military  or  civilian,  combined 
with  varied  and  accurate  general  culture  so  many 
traces  of  having  been  through  the  regulation 
classical  mill.  My  friend  St.  Leger  Herbert,  a 
scholar  of  his  college  at  Oxford,  who  at  different 
times,  abroad  and  at  home,  had  lived  much  with 
and  worked  much  for  *'  our  only  General,"  ex- 
plained this  by  telling  me,  from  his  own  experi- 
ence, that  after  passing  school  and  college  age 
Wolseley  had  again  disciplined  himself  in  the 
old  curriculum  on  his  own  account.  *'  All 
soldiers,"  he  once  said  to  me,  *'  worth  anything, 
from  Aristotle's  pupil,  Alexander,  to  the  Duke 
of  Wellington,  have  been  systematic  students, 
grinding  their  intellect  on  science  or  language, 
according   to  their  taste." 

His  quick,  alert  nature,  overflowing  with 
vitality,  showed  itself  equally  in  the  close  per- 
ception of  all  that  went  on  about  him,  and  his 
conversation  upon  it  or  suggested  by  it.  One 
could  not  be  much  in  his  company  without  feel- 
ing that  his  buoyant  disposition  explained  the 
apparent  ease  of  his  triumph  over  the  difficulties 

143 


Great  Victorians 

in  his  professional  path.  He  set  out  with  an 
exact  knowledge  of  what  he  intended  to  do,  and 
never  lost  sight  of  the  goal,  which  he  doubted 
not  his  lifetime  would  enable  him  to  reach.  The 
Army,  as  he  knew  it  on  entering  it,  struck 
him  as  largely  an  eighteenth -century  organiza- 
tion. Its  ceremonial  routine,  reviews,  inspec- 
tions, manoeuvres,  took  up  time  and  exhausted 
energies  which  ought  to  be  expended  on  master- 
ing the  military  developments  and  the  strategical 
progress  of  our  own  times  elsewhere  than  in 
England.  Here  came  in  the  value  of  his  associa- 
tion with  Brackenbury,  who  now,  almost  half  a 
century  ago,  in  Frasefs  Magazine,  then  edited 
by  Froude,  wrote  a  series  of  articles  on  military 
reform,  the  first  appearing  in  August  1867. 
These  essays  formed  the  earliest  statement  of  the 
Wolseleyan  programme.  The  chief  points  in- 
sisted on  were  the  mischief  to  the  public  service 
of  the  dual  control  by  the  Secretary  of  State  and 
the  Commander-in-Chief  and  the  appointment  of 
a  Chief  of  the  Staff.  Twenty-one  years  later 
Brackenbury,  as  a  member  of  the  Hartington 
Commission  on  Naval  and  Military  Administra- 
tion, repeated  these  recommendations.  Nine 
years  before  Wolseley's  death  ( 1 9 1 3 ),  and 
shortly  before  Brackenbury's  retirement  from  the 

active    list,    the    office    of    Commander-in-Chief 

144 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

ceased  to  exist,  and  a  Chief  of  the  General  Staff 
was  called  into  being.  In  his  **  scorn  of  luxurious 
days  "  and  the  severity  of  the  self -education  which 
only  ended  with  his  life,  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
should  be  considered  a  scientific  soldier.  With 
him  came  into  being  the  personal  forces  clearing 
the  way  for  the  professional  soldier  of  our  own 
time,  all  of  whose  heart  and  mind  is  in  his  work. 
By  such  agencies,  too,  were  removed  the  last 
obstacles  to  Lord  Haldane's  completion  of  Wol- 
seley's  reforms.  That  General's  ideal  was  "a 
fighting  force  which  should  be  ready  to  go  any- 
where and  do  anything."  Those  were  Wolseley 's 
words,  addressed  in  my  presence  during  one  of 
his  frequent  Strathfieldsaye  visits  to  the  second 
Duke  of  Wellington,  who  gravely  remarked,  "  His 
Grace  would  have  agreed  with  you  exactly.  My 
father,"  he  added,  "  sufi'ered  much  from  factious 
political  opponents  at  home  while  fighting  night 
and  day  for  his  coimtry  abroad.  You  have  been, 
no  doubt,  prepared  for  all  the  interference  with 
you  by  the  whole  pack  of  Secretaries  of  State, 
Surveyors -General,  and  the  rest  of  them." 

From  Wellington  to  Kitchener,  the  continuity 
of  the  military  succession  has  been  without  a 
break,  for  the  present  Secretary  of  State  for  War, 
if  not  Wolseley's  officer,  was  when  a  Woolwich 

cadet  one  of  Brackenbury's  pupils. 

145  K 


Great  Victorians 

He  certainly  impressed  the  greatest  of  con- 
tinental judges  with  a  unique  comhination  of 
gifts.  When  passing  through  Berlin  during  the 
seventies  he  was  the  one  British  officer  whom 
Bismarck  wished  to  see.  That  statesman's 
estimate  was  given  some  years  later  in  terms  of 
emphatic  compliment  to  Sir  Charles  Dilke.  Since 
Lord  Wolseley's  time  the  evolution  of  the  twen- 
tieth-century soldier  has  passed  through  fresh 
stages  under  new  auspices.  Lord  Kitchener 
never  had  a  place  in  the  Wolseley  school,  and  is 
not  less  of  an  original  product  than  was  Wolseley 
himself.  At  Mr.  Pandeli  Ralli's  Surrey  country 
house,  "  Cranbrook,"  where  Kitchener  used  to 
be  a  frequent  guest,  the  conversation  turned  on 
the  great  masters  of  modern  warfare.  The  future 
Secretary  of  State  for  War  had  then  first  become 
generally  known  for  his  Egyptian  achievements. 
*'  Pray  tell  me,  Colonel  Kitchener,  who  helped 
you  to  become  a  warrior  of  such  renown?"  *' I 
can,"  he  replied,  "  only  say  with  Topsy  in  '  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin,'  *  'Spects  I  growed.'  " 

Even  that  strong  and  invaluable  growth  might 
not  have  produced  services  so  immense  to  his 
country  as  well  as  to  the  whole  profession  of 
arms  had  not  the  atmosphere  of  his  youth  been 
suffused  with  Wolseleyism.  Tel-el-Kebir  came 
sixteen  years  before  Khartoum. 

146 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

Some  time  during  the  seventies  I  called  at 
Limmer's  Hotel,  Conduit  Street,  on  a  military 
friend  of  my  school  and  college  days,  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  dispatches  for  gallant  conduct 
abroad  and  justly  passing  for  a  capable  and 
smart  officer  at  home.  It  was  still  the  forenoon, 
and  I  suggested  a  stroll  in  the  Park.  *'  Impos- 
sible," he  said  from  between  the  sheets,  for  he 
was  still  in  bed.  **  I  have  nothing  to  wear.  The 
fact,"  he  continued,  "  is,  I  have  had  no  occasion 
for  day  clothes  for  a  long  time,  because  I  don't 
usually  get  up  till  it  is  time  to  dress  for  dinner. 
When  I  looked  for  my  morning  suit  some  days 
since,  I  found  my  servant  had  put  it  away  as 
too  shabby  to  wear.  I  have  ordered  things  in 
its  place,  but  they  have  not  come  home  yet." 

In  those  days  many  of  Captain  Rawdon 
Crawley's  descendants  still  flourished  ;  and,  out- 
side hospitals,  Albert  Smith's  "  gent  "  was  a 
by  no  means  extinct  type.  Among  wearers  of 
uniforms  it  had  not  gone  out  when  the  *'  Wolseley 
gang  "  began  to  come  in.  It  vanished  as  soon 
as  that  blend  of  intellectual  and  professional  in- 
fluence began  to  leaven  the  whole  martial  polity. 
Cremome  Gardens,  finally  closed  in  1877,  were 
still  open,  but  the  Wolseley  epoch  had  no  sooner 
fairly  begun  than  dwellers  in  the  adjacent  streets 
distant  not  more  than  a  hundred  yards  from  the 

147 


Great  Victorians 

place  ceased  to  have  their  slumbers  broken  by 
the  noise  outside  of  altercations  with  the  cabmen  : 
**  Wot,  Capting,  h'only  arf  a  sov.  for  you  and  your 
lydy  [in  pink  satin],  all  the  way  from  Cre- 
morne ! "  while  some  other  Spring  Captain, 
sallying  forth  on  a  night's  pleasure,  as  he  made 
for  Piccadilly,  took  the  preliminary  precaution 
of  entrusting  his  gold  watch  and  chain  to  the  first 
policeman  he  met  with.  **  Bring  it  round  to 
Long's  to-morrow."  Such  incidents  as  those  just 
related  were  common  enough  in  mid-Victorian 
days.  They  became  part  of  that  ancient  history 
which  never  repeats  itself,  once  a  Roberts  and  a 
Wolseley  established  the  tradition  of  the  simple, 
strenuous  life  for  Lord  Kitchener  to  emphasize 
as  well  as  by  precept  and  practice  to  enforce. 

The  soul  of  generosity  to  all  those  about  him, 
Wolseley  proclaimed  more  than  once,  before  any 
one  hinted  at  them  in  print,  the  obligations  of 
himself  and  the  methods  for  which  he  stood  to 
Brackenbury  and  his  associates.  It  was  in  1882 
that  Wolseley  broke  the  power  of  Arabi  Pasha. 
The  earlier  acts  in  this  drama  of  the  near  East 
had  included  Sir  Beauchamp  Seymour's  naval 
demonstration  at  Dulcigno,  followed  by  the 
Montenegrin  frontier  commission.  The  British 
representatives  on  that  body  included  the  pick 
of    Brackenbury 's    Woolwich    class-room.       Sir 

148 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

John  Ardagh's  and  Sir  Edward  Law's  deaths 
have  left  Sir  Vincent  Caillard  the  one  survivor 
of  the  officers  trained  by  Wolseley's  ablest 
deputy.  To  those  names,  however,  should 
be  ,  added  the  Duke  of  Connaught.  Queen 
Victoria's  youngest  son  not  only  had  been 
one  of  Brackenbury's  pupils  at  the  Academy, 
but  when  quartered  at  Dover  in  the  Rifle  Brigade 
had  requested  his  old  teacher  to  deliver  a  course 
of  lectures  on  military  history  at  the  Lord  Warden 
Hotel.  Much  gratified  at  the  account  she  heard 
of  all  this,  Queen  Victoria,  as  **  a  soldier's 
daughter,"  not  only  sent  her  thanks  to  the 
lecturer,  but  some  years  later  showed  the  im- 
pression it  had  made  upon  her  by  referring  in 
conversation  with  Wolseley  to  the  pleasure  she 
had  received  from  his  brilliant  follower's  pro- 
fessional services  to  her  son. 

Many  years  ago  I  happened  to  be  at  Berlin  in 
the  company  of  Allan  Thomdike  Rice,  then 
editor  and  owner  of  the  North  American  Review, 
The  object  of  this  visit  was  to  get  an  article  fromj 
Von  Moltke,  and  he  brought  back  to  our  hotel  a 
story  of  his  interview  with  the  great  Prussian 
strategist  and  a  certain  oracular  and  rather 
obscure  utterance  he  delivered.  Rice  had  made 
some  pleasant  remarks  on  the  great  qualities  of 
the  Prussian  soldier  in  the  then  almost  recent  war 

149 


Great  Victorians 

with  France.  "  I  can  accept,"  said  the  Field- 
Marshal,  "  your  compliment  on  our  troops  in  the 
hour  of  victory,  but  cannot  answer  for  their 
deserving  it  in  the  day  of  defeat."  Whether  this 
meant  that  a  serious  German  reverse  was  un- 
thinkable, or  that  the  soldiers  of  the  Fatherland 
might  prove  morally  unequal  to  the  strain  of 
reverses  and  checks,  was  a  point  which  the  editor 
thought  Von  Moltke  purposely  left  doubtful. 
Perhaps,  however,  it  was  only  the  great  man's 
way  of  turning  the  conversation. 

Allan  Thorndike  Rice  will  be  remembered  as  a 
very  highly  Anglicized  specimen  of  the  literary 
American.  The  transition,  therefore,  was  natural 
from  the  generalship  in  the  war  between  North 
and  South  to  the  English  military  leaders  of  the 
time.  In  France,  Lady  Wolseley  shared  with 
Madame  Gallifet  the  reputation  of  being  the  best- 
dressed  woman  in  Europe ;  and  Lord  Wolseley 
ranked  high  in  the  opinion,  not  only  of  General 
Gallifet  himself,  but  of  all  French  critics  of  the 
time.  *'  From  the  men  about  Von  Moltke,"  said 
Rice,,  as  he  completed  the  account  of  his  interview^ 
"  I  found  the  German  estimate  was  the  same. 
Wolseley,  they  all  admitted,  has  mastered  the 
secret  of  success."  That  was  the  truth  which 
won  for  "  our  only  General  "  the  well -placed 
confidence,  not  only  of  successive  Cabinets,  but 

150 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

of  the  entire  nation,  in  a  degree  unapproached  by 
any  great  captain  since  Wellington.  He  had 
invented  and  perfected  an  effective  fighting 
machine,  on  every  wheel,  spring,  and  check  of 
which  he  could  rely  for  producing  a  desired  and 
circumspectly  planned  result.  The  careers  and 
achievements,  not  of  Brackenbury  alone,  but  of 
half  a  dozen  others,  attest  the  care,  skill,  and 
instinct  for  character  with  which  he  chose  his 
instruments  and  which  placed  him  in  his  day 
beyond  the  reach  of  rivalry. 

One  quality  was  conspicuously  shared  by 
Wolseley  with  other  great  men,  and  perhaps  the 
greatest  men  of  all  times.  By  the  night  of 
September  12,  1882,  Wolseley  had  arranged  the 
attack  on  Arabi  Pasha.  Before  it  began,  the 
General,  taking  out  his  watch,  said,  "  We  have 
exactly  ten  minutes  to  spare.  If  I  am  not  awake 
then,  call  me."  That  did  not  prove  necessary. 
At  the  appointed  time  to  the  minute  Wolseley  was 
on  his  feet,  ready  to  open  the  conflict  which,  con- 
tinuing through  the  hours  of  darkness,  ended  by 
the  forenoon  of  the  next  day  with  the  victory  that 
made  the  English  the  overlords  of  the  land  of 
the  Pharaohs.  Among  statesmen  the  same  gift 
of  slumber  descended  both  to  Gladstone  and 
Disraeli  from  Pitt.  On  a  certain  night  in  the 
early  summer  of    1797,  news  of  the  Mutiny  at 

151 


Great  Victorians 

the  Nore  was  personally  brought  to  the  Prime 
Minister  in  bed  at  Downing  Street  by  Lord 
Spencer,  then  head  of  the  Admiralty.  Pitt 
listened  attentively  and  resumed  his  night's  rest 
when  his  colleague  had  left.  As  Spencer  was 
leaving  the  house  he  thought  of  something  which 
should  be  added  to  what  he  had  already  said. 
He  ran  upstairs  again,  only  to  find  the  statesman 
buried  in  profound  repose.  General  Alava, 
Spanish  Minister  in  London,  and  the  Duke  of 
Wellington's  friend  and  former  companion-in- 
arms, was  surprised,  the  evening  before  the 
battle  of  Orthes,'  by  one  of  his  officers  in  much 
agitation  coming  to  him  with  the  words,  "  I  don't 
know  what  "will  happen  to  us.  'Here  is  Wellington 
doing  nothing  but  flirt  with  Madame  Quintana." 
*'  I  am  glad  to  hear  it,"  was  the  reply  ;  *'  for  it 
shows  that,  as  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  great  fight, 
all  his  arrangements  are  made."  One  exact 
Wellingtonian  parallel  to  Wolseley  just  before 
his  great  victory  may  be  given.  In  the  August 
of    1813   the   Duke,   on  reaching   St.   Sebastian, 

^  "  It  was  here  that  the  Duke  received  one  of  the  few  wounds 
or  bruises  which  were  his  lot,  but,"  said  Mr.  Gleig,  who  told  me, 
"he  was  up  on  his  feet  in  a  moment  and  joking  with  Alava, 
slightly  injured  at  the  same  time."  From  Alava,  too,  Hay  ward, 
as  he  told  me,  heard  that  Cambronne,  on  being  captured  by 
General  Halkett,  never  said,  "La  garde  meurt,  et  ne  se  rend  pas," 
but  only  cried  out  for  a  surgeon  to  dress  his  wounds. 

152 


From  Wellington  to  Wolseley 

heard  that  breaching  batteries  would  not  open  for 
two  hours.  **  Then^"  said  Wellington  to  his  aide- 
de-camp  (the  future  Lord  Westmorland),  *' the 
best  thing  we  can  do,  Burghersh,  is  to  go  to 
sleep.*'  Suiting  the  action  to  the  word,  and 
slipping  off  his  horse,  he  supported  his  back 
against  one  side  of  a  trench  and  was  snoring  in 
a  moment.  "  Without  this  power  of  sleep  at 
will,*'  said  General  Alava  to  Hayward,  *'  there  can 
be  no  great  commander  nor  man  in  any  line  ; 
for  mind  and  body  alike  would  give  way  under 
exceptional  stress.*'  The  famous  officer  now 
filling  Wolseley*s  place  in  the  nation's  life  has 
other  personal  tastes  beyond  that  for  hard  work 
in  common  with  his  prototype.  Lord  Kitchener 
prefers  gold  or  silver  tea-services  as  gifts  from 
a  grateful  country  to  *'  swords  of  honour,'*  and  is 
a  thoroughly  trained  connoisseur  in  all  which 
concerns  the  works  composed  of  precious  metals 
and  stones.  Lord  Wolseley  knew  enough  of 
paintings  and  statuary  for  a  professional  art 
critic,  and  had  as  skilled  an  eye  for  old  crockery 
and  china  as  Mr.  Gladstone  himself. 


153 


CHAPTER   III 

AMBASSADORS  AT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

School  examining  at  Tunbridge  Wells — The  young  ladies  playing 
croquet — The  gentleman  on  the  garden  bench — The  great 
"  Eltchi "  as  seen  in  the  lobby  of  the  House— Debate 
on  the  Quadruple  Alliance — His  only  speech,  as  he  said,  in 
the  House — Crimean  War  caused,  not  by  blundering  and 
ignorant  miscalculation,  but  by  the  great  ideas  and  passions 
long  in  the  air — Russia  as  the  tyrant  of  national  liberty 
under  Nicholas  I — "  A  cat  whom  no  one  cares  to  bell " — 
Stratford  Canning's  rise  and  progress — Diplomacy  no  longer 
a  close  borough — George  Canning's  cousin  and  precis-writer, 
but  no  friends  at  Court — A  son  of  the  commercial  classes — 
At  Eton,  not  as  an  oppidan  but  a  "  tug  " — Roughing  it  in 
the  *'  Long  Chamber  " — Captain  of  the  school — Gets  King's, 
makes  many  famous  friends,  but  owes  more  to  home  lessons 
than  to  any  of  these — Not  a  persona  grata  to  the  Czar,  but 
Sultan  against  Sultan  at  Constantinople — The  terror  of  the 
Turk  and  of  his  own  attaches — Granville  Murray  rebels — 
Caricatures  his  chief  in  Sir  Hector  Stubble — The  great 
"Eltchi"  returns  to  London — Is  the  diplomatic  oracle  of 
Parliament — Retires  to  Tunbridge  Wells — Intellectual  and 
busy  to  the  last — Place  in  social  and  political  nineteenth- 
century  development — The  great  "  Eltchi's "  great  pre- 
decessor, and  those  who  have  since  filled  his  place  at 
Constantinople — Sir  William  White  and  others. 

At  the  end  of  the  sixties  I  was  much  occupied 
with  educational  work,  and  did,  amongst  other 

154 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

things,  a  good  deal  of  school  examining.  An 
errand  of  that  sort  took  me  to  Tunbridge 
Wells,  where  I  had  never  been  before.  I  knew 
nothing  except  the  address  of  the  pupils  or 
teachers  to  whom  I  had  been  summoned,  but 
the  cabman  who  drove  me  from  the  station 
to  the  place  seemed  familiar  with  it,  and 
in  a  few  minutes  had  set  me  down  at  the 
door,  approached  by  a  little  gravel  drive  through 

a    shrubbery    of    evergreens.      Miss ,    said 

the  servant,  who  had  opened  to  me,  was  then 
busy  with  a  new  governess  who  had  just 
come,  but  would  be  with  me  directly  if  I 
would  be  seated  in  the  drawing-room  or,  if 
I  preferred  it,  in  the  garden.  I  chose  the 
latter  as  the  day  was  fine,  and  unexpectedly 
found  myself  within  a  few  seconds  encircled 
by  a  group  of  young  ladies  between  the  ages 
of  eight  and  eighteen,  who  obligingly  offered 
to  get  me  a  chair,  unless  I  would  join  them 
in  a  game  of  croquet.  The  seat  not  making 
its  appearance  as  soon  as  I  had  supposed,  I 
established  myself  on  a  garden  bench  already 
occupied  by  an  old  gentleman  of  attenuated 
figure  but  generally  commanding  presence, 
and  with  what  may  be  called  the  remains  of 
a  penetrating  and  imperious  expression  of  face, 
which    a  generation    earlier   had    overawed    the 

155 


Great  Victorians 

Tui'kish  Sultan  and  his  ministers ;  for,  as  I 
presently  found  out,  he  was  none  other  than 
Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  our  Ambassador 
at  the  Porte  from  1842  to  1858.  He  wel- 
comed me  most  politely,  then  praised  the  house 
and  its  mistress,  adding,  '*  You  look  rather 
young,  sir,  to  have  a  daughter  of  school  age." 
In  a  moment  the  alarming  truth  flashed  upon 
me.  **  The  Laurels,"  whither  as  examiner  I 
had  oomfe,  was  an  establishment  for  young 
ladies.  And  now  I  saw  my  hostess  bearing 
down  upon  me.  **  Ah !  "  she  said  naively, 
'*  I  see  you  have  made  friends  with  his  lord- 
ship already."  "Yes,"  said  the  gentleman, 
once  more  addressing  me  directly,  ■■'  I  am  a 
neighbour  of  this  excellent  lady ;  I  like  young 
people,  and  she  lets  me  come  here  sometimes 
to  see  her  ch,arges  at  their  play.  Your 
name,"  he  said  to  toe  presently,  "  has  a  West 
of  England  sound,  and  I  am  glad  to  hear  it, 
for  I  am  myself  a  Somersetshire  man  by  descent." 
It  was  none  other  than  the  then  sole  survivor  of 
the  famous  men  connected  with  the  Crimean  War. 
And  of  all  unlikely  places  for  seeing  the  great 
"  Eltchi,"  quite  the  unlikeliest  would  have 
seemed  a  girls'  playground  in  a  home  county. 
The  mention  of  Bristol  called  up  Bridgwater, 
then,  as  always,  a  corrupt  but  not  disfranchised 

156 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

borough  with  *'  Eothen  "  Kinglake  for  its  mem- 
ber, whose  account  in  his  *'  Invasion  of  the 
Crimea  "  of  our  fierce-tempered  Ambassador  at 
the  Porte  might  have  prepared  one  for  a  much 
more  alarming  personage  than  I  had  encountered 
so  unexpectedly  in  the  grounds  of  a  maiden 
lady  at  Frant. 

A  remark  that  I  had  been  known  to  Kinglake 
all  my  life,  and  that  I  had  recently  seen  him 
when  visiting  the  House  of  Commons,  seemed  to 
prepare  him  for  a  little  interest  in  myself.  **  My 
House  of  Commons  days,"  he  said,  '*  are  now 
some  five -and -twenty  years  behind  me,  and  for 
some  time  I  have  been  a  stranger  even  to  the 
House  in  which  I  now  have  a  seat."  Elsewhere, 
liowever,  in  the  Parliamentary  precincts  his  figure 
was  familiar  enough ;  and  one  of  the  sights  for 
which  lobby  visitors  specially  looked  was  the 
little  grey-headed,  pale-faced  old  gentleman 
who  from  1 84 1  to  1857  had  made  the  great  Turk 
tremble  in  his  capital,  and  secured  his  own  recog- 
nition by  the  rest  of  the  world  as  master  of  the 
Sultan . 

A  tolerable  memory  of  incidents  at  St. 
Stephen's  served  me  now  in  my  conversation  with 
the  great  "  Eltchi."  I  had  heard  of  his  speech 
in  the  Commons  two  years  after  his  entering  it 
for  Lynn.     The  debate  had  been  on  the  Quad- 

157 


Great  Victorians 

ruple  Alliance,  formed  by  England,  France, 
Portugal,  and  Spain,  for  clearing  the  Peninsula 
of  the  two  Pretenders,  Don  Carlos  and  Don 
Miguel.  Sir  Stratford  Canning,  to  speak  of  him 
by  his  then  style,  had  opened  the  discussion  with 
an  explanation  of  Palmerston's  policy  directed  to 
that  end.  Of  the  other  speakers,  the  best  known, 
so  far  as  I  could  remember,  was  Lord  Leveson, 
the  future  second  Earl  of  Granville.  It  was  a 
very  attenuated  reminiscence,  but  it  seemed  to 
please  the  great  man  ;  "  And  I  think,"  he  said, 
"you  have  recalled  about  the  only  speech  I  made 
in  the  House."  At  last  he  approached  the  subject 
of  the  Crimean  War.  **  You  have  no  doubt,"  he 
said,  *'  heard  the  story  of  Lord  Bath's  discovery 
that  it  was  my  way  of  revenging  myself  on  the 
Czar  Nicholas  for  his  objection  to  my  being 
English  Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg.  But 
when  two  great  nations,  as  was  then  the  case, 
urge  their  Governments  to  take  up  the  sword, 
one  must  look  beyond  individuals  to  the  impelling 
cause  and  to  something  else  than  the  blunders  of 
ignorance  or  miscalculation,  the  vindictiveness  of 
an  individual  like  myself  or  the  wiles  of  the 
remarkable  man  then  at  the  head  of  the  restored 
French  Empire.  Chatham  in  the  eighteenth 
century  could  speak  of  *  becoming  more  and  more 
Russ   every   day,'    and   in   comparison   with   the 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

Germans,  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  experience  of 
the  Czar  and  his  agents  was  that  of  dealing  with 
saints.'* 

But  from  the  year  1 8  i  5  Russia  had  studiously 
stood  outside  the  European  polity.  Ten  years 
later  Nicholas  I  ascended  the  throne.  Under  him 
Russia  entered  upon  a  course  presaging,  not  only 
in  its  general  outline  but  in  many  of  its  details,  the 
pretensions  and  the  savagery  that  a  century  later 
were  to  make  the  Hohenzollerns  the  bullies  of 
the  Continent  and  in  a  struggle  for  bare  existence 
unite  the  rest  of  the  Western  world  against  them. 
*'  During  the  first  half  of  this  century,"  said  Lord 
Stratford,  **  Russia  stood  forth  as  the  tyrant,  not 
only  of  Turkey,  Hungary,  or  Poland,  but  of 
national  liberty  wherever  it  could  be  found.  In 
the  next  century,  when  I  am  gone,  you  may  see 
Russia  herself  making  common  cause  wdth  others 
against  a  neighbour  denying  to  her  and  the  rest 
of  the  world  the  right  to  breathe  save  on  con- 
ditions which  that  neighbour  lays  down." 

The  old  diplomatist  abstained,  of  course,  from 
any  direct  reference  to  his  part  in  the  great  drama 
except,  perhaps,  when  he  said  that  the  Czar 
always  believed  in  the  impossibility  of  England 
taking  up  arms  against  him  while  Lord  Aberdeen 
and  his  colleagues  held  office.  This  was  to  over- 
look the  fact  that  Lord  Stratford  at  Constanti- 

159 


Great  Victorians 

nople  rather  than  the  Prime  Minister  in  Downing 
Street  decided  and  regulated  British  action.  At 
the  Porte,  Lord  Stratford  managed  the  Turks  in 
their  own  way  ;  it  was  really  one  Sultan  against 
another  Sultan.  Lord  Granville,  writing  to  the 
Duke  of  Argyll,  put  the  facts  truly  as  well  as 
effectively  :  "  We  have  as  Ambassador  at  Con- 
stantinople a  cat  whom'  no  one  cares  to  bell.'* 

In  1852  the  great  *' Eltchi  "  had  jumped  at 
the  idea  of  being  Lord  Derby's  Secretary  of 
State  at  the  Foreign  Office.  The  whole  Corps 
diplomatique  of  London  were  affrighted  by  what 
they  called  **  a  bad  joke."  The  suggestion,  of 
course,  fell  through.  The  Crimean  War  had 
come  to  an  end  two  years  when  Lord  Stratford 
de  Redcliffe,  both  visiting  London  and  staying  at 
many  country  houses,  had  the  opportunity  of 
criticizing  some  of  his  own  critics,  among  them 
Persigny,  from  1855  to  i860  French  Ambas- 
sador in  London.  *'  That  diplomatist,"  said  Lord 
Stratford,  "  had  nothing  in  him,  no  suite  in  con- 
versation, no  tact."  What  had  offended  Lord 
Stratford  chiefly  had  been  Persigny's  remark  to 
him  :  *'  Milord,  on  me  dit  que  vous  etes  deux  per- 
sonnes — dans  la  conversation,  rien  de  plus  char- 
mant ;  mais  touchez  aux  affaires,  et  voila  le  lion 
Britannique."  As  he  told  this  story  the  great 
*'  Eltchi  "  straightened  his  neck,  opened  his  eyes, 

160 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

closed  his  lips,  as  if  he  felt  himself  the  British 
lion,  and  as  if  he  had  had  his  whiskers  pulled. 
The  great  "  Eltchi's  "  indignation  over  this 
little  incident  was  nothing  in  comparison  with  the 
display  of  wrath  provoked  by  a  little  gentleman 
with  curly  hair  just  turning  grey,  dark  com- 
plexion, vivacious  manner,  and  glib  tongue, 
known  during  the  late  seventies  at  the  crack  Paris 
restaurants  as  the  *'  Little  Dook,"  from  having 
for  his  father  the  most  magnificent  specimen  of 
the  highest  order  of  British  nobility.  This  was 
Granville  Murray,  the  Duke  of  Buckingham's 
reputed  son,  and,  as  that  son  contended,  lawful 
heir.  His  noble  father  had  opened  to  him, 
not  only  the  door  of  the  Foreign  Office,  but  of 
the  Morning  Post.  Going  as  attache  to  Lord 
Westmorland's  embassy  at  Vienna,  Murray 
doubled  the  part  of  sucking  diplomatist  and  news- 
paper correspondent.  The  Ambassador  showed 
his  disapproval  of  this  arrangement  by  getting 
the  young  man  "  moved  on  "  to  Constantinople. 
There  Sir  Stratford  Canning  showed  a  suspicion 
of  the  new  attache  from  the  first ;  objecting  to 
his  journalistic  connection,  he  made  him  Vice- 
Consul  at  Mitylene.  Murray  then  took  his 
revenge  upon  the  author  of  his  exile  by  carica- 
turing him  as  Sir  Hector  Stubble  in  *'  The 
Roving    Englishman,"    a    series    of    Household 

i6i  L 


Great  Victorians 

Words  articles.!  The  home  authorities  next  pro- 
ceeded to  shelve  Murray  by  making  him  Consul - 
General  at  Odessa.  Here  he  constantly  employed 
himself  with  attempting  to  blackmail  English 
merchants.  Lord  Derby,  then  Foreign  Secretary, 
being  appealed  to,  gave  judgment  against  Murray^ 
who  divided  the  rest  of  his  days  between  London 
and  Paris. 

Though  he  had  not  spared  his  too  literary 
attache  for  the  escapades  just  mentioned,  Sir 
Stratford  himself  was  no  fanatical  votary  of  red- 
tapeism.  He  fancied  that  he  had  something  of 
a  grievance  because  he  had  not  been  given  the 
Paris  Embassy  in  1852.  Lord  Granville,  then 
Foreign  Secretary,  pleaded  the  insuperable  diffi- 
culties of  social  or  political  etiquette.  Sir  Strat- 
ford apparently  acquiesced,  and  assured  the 
minister  that  the  little  disappointment  should  not 
interrupt  their  friendship  or  stand  in  the  way 
of  his  writing  on  foreign  questions  to  Lord  Gran- 
ville himself  with  the  same  freedom  as,  in  earlier 
days,  he  had  written  to  his  father  while  repre- 
sentative of  England  in  the  French  capital.     Sir 

^  The  usual  Foreign  Office  bag  from  London,  reaching  Sir 
Stratford  at  the  Constantinople  Embassy,  was  accompanied  by 
a  sack  of  papers.  These  proved  to  be  copies  of  the  magazine 
containing  this  composition  ;  for  not  only  the  writer,  but  all  his 
own  kind  friends,  determined  that  he  should  not  miss  it,  had 
sent  it  to  the  Ambassador. 

162 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

Stratford,  however,  did  not  readily  or  for  a  long 
time  completely  get  over  his  soreness  in  the 
matter.  He  even  gave  that  feeling  an  occa- 
sional expression  in  words  which  showed  him  to 
have  inherited  some  share  of  his  famous  cousin's 
rhetorical  acidity  shown  during  the  debate  on 
the  Indemnity  Bill  of  1 8 1 8  in  his  reference  to 
**  the  revered  and  ruptured  Ogden."  The  velvet- 
covered  claw  might  at  least  have  been  seen  in 
Sir  Stratford's  description  of  Granville  as  not  only 
a  Foreign  Office  sphinx  but  a  Foreign  Office 
sponge,  absorbing  every  drop  of  intelligence  but 
giving  none  in  return.  This  was  in  the  same 
eminently  Canningian  vein  as  Stratford's  earlier 
description  of  Talleyrand  as  a  rapid  stream, 
frozen  over  smoothly  and  transparently  enough  to 
show  the  current  without  discovering  the  bottom. 
Recalling  these  and  other  experiences,  Lord 
Stratford,  as  for  some  fifteen  years  he  had  been 
when  I  saw  him,  let  it  be  seen  that  he  believed 
a  good  deal  less  in  the  collective  wisdom  of  the 
Foreign  Office  than  in  the  fitness  for  his  work  of 
the  Ambassador.  If  at  every  turn  of  affairs  he 
has  to  wait  for  instructions  from  home  he  but 
degenerates  into  a  Downing  Street  under-strapper 
in  a  gold -laced  coat  at  the  end  of  a  telegraph 
wire.  "  Some  Foreign  Office  training,"  he  held, 
*'  may    be    in    most    cases     desirable,    but    for 

163 


Great  Victorians 

diplomacy  the  great  thing  is  to  get  the  best  men 
to  he  had,  and  not  to  look  for  them  only  within 
official  Umits.  That  method  formed  the  foun- 
dation of  Austrian  diplomacy  in  its  palmiest 
eighteenth -century  period.  Maria  Theresa  found 
a  successor  to  Kaunitz,  not  in  the  official  ring  but 
in  a  poor  Danube  boatman's  son,  Thugut.  The 
same  kind  of  thing  repeatedly  happened  with  us 
during  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the  Univer- 
sities were  asked  by  the  Secretary  of  State  to 
recommend  from  time  to  time  such  of  their 
students  as  Nature  might  seem  to  have  shaped  for 
an  international  career. i  In  a  way  not  unlike 
this  I  was  brought  out  myself.  My  father  had 
given  a  home  to  my  cousin  George  and  looked 
well  after  him  at  Eton.  -He  requited  this  kindness 
by  his  interest  from  the  first  in  me.  He  himself 
took  me  to  Eton  at  the  age  of  nine,  and  at 
Eton  I  belonged,  not  to  the  wealthy  and  aris- 
tocratic oppidans,  but  as  a  colleger  roughed  it 
with  the  poorest  and  humblest  in  that  terrible 
*  Long  Chamber.'  My  forefathers  in  the  Middle 
Ages  had  prospered  as  Bristol  traders.  After- 
wards they  established  themselves  in  London. 
My  father  did  well  there,  but  none  of  the  family, 

'  So  Gilbert  West,  the  friend  and  contemporary  of  Chatham, 
who  translated  "Pindar"  and  wrote  on  the  Resurrection,  had 
been  offered,  in  his  Christ  Church  days,  at  the  Dean's  instance 
but  had  refused,  a  place  in  the  Foreign  Office. 

164 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

like  so  many  of  their  merchant  contemporaries/ 
ever  founded  a  poHtical  house  or  acquired,  as 
was  done  at  a  later  day  by  the  Whitbreads  and 
others,  political  connection  and  influence. 
Captain  of  the  school  in  1806,  I  naturally  got 
King's,  and  brought  with  me  to  Cambridge,  1 
am  pleased  to  think,  as  many  signs  of  school 
popularity  and  esteem,  in  the  shape  of  '  leaving 
books,'  as  any  one  of  my  time. 

*'  My  whole  University  life,"  he  went  on,  "  con- 
sisted of  only  two  terms,  the  one  thing  about  it 
worth  mention  perhaps  being  that  my  rooms, 
which  were  in  the  oldest  part  of  the  building, 
had  been  those  of  a  famous  and  much  earlier 
King's  scholar.  Sir  Robert  Walpole."  "These 
rooms,"  Lord  Stratford  told  the  present  writer, 
"  were  kept  aired  and  in  order  for  me,  after 
my  cousin  had  helped  me  to  the  beginning 
of  my  professional  life  ;    for  from  time  to  time 

^  The  London  traders  who  have  founded  or  re-created  noble 
houses  included  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  the 
ancestor  of  the  Aveland  peers,  Sir  Gilbert  Heathcote  ;  Sir  Samuel 
Dashwood,  Lord  Brooke's  progenitor ;  Sir  Thomas  Cooke,  the 
draper  and  Lord  Mayor,  who  prepared  the  way  for  the  Verulam 
peerage ;  Sir  John  Gresham,  grocer,  to  whose  posterity  a  Duke 
of  Buckingham  belonged ;  and  Sir  John  Houblon,  grocer,  whose 
descendants  numbered  the  first  Viscount  Palmerston.  Descend- 
ing to  our  own  times,  not  only  commercial  success  but  first-class 
political  influence  associates  itself  with  the  names  of  Whitbread, 
Rathbone,  and  Chamberlain. 

.65 


Great  Victorians 

I  combined  short  spells  of  college  residence  with 
my  pr6cis-writership  at  the  Foreign  Office ;  I 
had  even  looked  forward  to  revisiting  King's 
after  going  to  Copenhagen  as  second  secretary. 
At  Cambridge  the  best -known  men  of  my  time 
included  Lonsdale,  Bishop  of  Lichfield  ;  Blom- 
field,  Bishop  of  London  ;  Pollock,  Chief  Baron  of 
the  Exchequer  ;  Lord  Palmer ston  ;  Ellenborough, 
Governor -General  of  India.  I  had  also  occa- 
sional glimpses  of  celebrities  belonging  to  an 
earlier  generation  than  my  own.  Such  were  the 
Grecian  Porson,  a  thin,  middle-sized  figure  with 
lank  hair,  pale  cheeks,  and  a  book  parentally 
hugged  under  his  arms,  as  well  as,  in  the  Evan- 
gelical pulpit,  Charles  Simeon,  so  seated  as  to 
be  invisible  till  he  rose  to  preach,  his  fingers 
flattened  against  each  other  and  pointing  up- 
wards, his  countenance  as  it  came  slowly  into 
view  noticeable  for  the  turned -up  eyes  and  a 
smile   of   sweet,    complacent   piety." 

The  moulding  force  of  his  character  would  be 
looked  for  in  vain  among  the  famous  figures  on 
the  Cam  ;  it  would  be  rather  found,  to  quote  his 
own  words,  in  his  mother.  "  It  was  good,"  she 
told  her  son,  "  of  your  cousin  George  to  give 
you  a  place  in  his  office,  but  your  admiration  of 
his  talents  and  virtues  must  not  make  you  blind 
to    his   faults— want   of   charity,    sometimes   even 

1 66 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

justice,  towards  his  adversaries,  and  a  bitter- 
ness of  speech  that  alienates  friends  and  makes 
enemies.  Considering  all  your  father  did  for 
George  at  Eton  and  afterwards,  his  goodness  to 
you  is  natural,  right,  and  creditable  to  him.  And 
remember  that  his  sharp  tongue  went  together 
with  a  generous  heart,  and  how  he  showed  this 
when,  while  at  the  Board  of  Control,  he  lent  poor 
Mr.  Sheridan,  whom,  by  the  by,  he  did  not  like, 
£200,  without  any  acknowledgment.  The  per- 
formance of  your  duty  to  Heaven  first,  towards 
all  your  fellow-creatures  in  your  various  relation- 
ships to  them,  and  especially  to  those  you  dis- 
like," was  the  sum  of  the  advice  given  to  her 
son  by  the  fond  mother,  who  not  once,  but  re- 
peatedly, whenever  she  saw  occasion,  impressed 
on  him  the  *'  paramount  need  of  consideration  for 
others,  as  shown  in  the  one  perfect  Life,  and 
the  help  in  the  formation  of  character  to  be 
derived  from  Blair's  most  excellent  discourse  on 
candour  and  rancour.  This  teaches  us  to 
mitigate  our  censures  of  one  who  was  at 
least  a  humane,  forbearing,  benevolent  spirit, 
and  so  likely  to  have  found  more  mercy 
from  his  Creator  than  from  his  fellows." 
For  the  rest,  let  her  son  above  all  things 
and  in  all  circumstances  observe  the  Sabbath 
day,  cultivate  the  virtues  of  order  and  regularity, 

167 


Great  Victorians 

and  so  lay  the  foundations  of  moral,  spiritual, 
intellectual,  as  well  as  physical  comfort,  health, 
and  effective  industry. 

The  influence  of  his  mother's  wishes,  training, 
and  instruction  had  not  exhausted  itself  in  his 
latest  years.  He  was  nearer  ninety  than  eighty 
when  he  produced  his  two  longest  and  most 
serious  compositions,  *' Why  am  I  a  Christian?" 
and  "The  Greatest  of  Miracles."  As  regards 
the  former  of  these,  the  author,  to  quote  his  own 
words  to  me — words,  as  I  thought,  strongly  im- 
bued with  the  Canningite  spirit — had  "  noticed 
theological  questions  not  only  debated  on  plat- 
forms, discussed  at  dinner-tables,  dogmatized  in 
newspapers,  but  sometimes  not  a  little  compli- 
cated by  members  of  Convocation.  The  subject 
of  supreme  importance,  both  temporal  and 
spiritual,  is,  in  fact,  tossed  about  from  mouth 
to  mouth  like  the  newest  piece  of  gossip  or 
scandal.  It  is  not,"  he  continued,  ''the  Church 
or  any  special  Communion  that  interests  me,  but 
the  divinity  of  the  Church's  Founder.  Hence 
my  exposition  of  its  superhuman  origin  in  this 
little  book,  under  sixteen  heads.  Who  may  have 
read  it  I  do  not  know,  but  am  glad  that  its  design 
and  execution  were  approved  by  experts  so  differ- 
ent from  each  other  as  Dean  Stanley  and  Lord 
Shaftesbury.      The   former  admired   the  success 

i68 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

with  which  the  difficulties  of  arrangement  had 
been  overcome,  and  beUeved  that  the  Church  as 
well  as  the  world  might  be  better  for  seeing 
so  firm  a  faith  combined  with  so  large  and  deep 
an  insight  into  the  great  truths  which  all  Christ- 
ians hold,  or  ought  to  hold,  alike.  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury welcomed  the  '  dear  and  long -known 
friend's '  clear,  stout  handwriting  in  the  letter 
about  his  book  as  a  proof  that  '  somehow  or  other 
the  love  of  Christ  keeps  people  very  young  and 
fresh,  however  old  they  may  be.'  " 

The  width  and  variety  of  Lord  Stratford's  intel- 
lectual interests  in  his  very  latest  years  now 
received  proof  as  conclusive  as  it  was  surprising 
to  the  person  in  conversation  with  him.  The 
Temple  Bar  Magazine  had  lately  contained  some 
pretty  verses  by  Mortimer  Collins,  ending  with 
the  lines  :— 

Whom  the  gods  love  die  young — for  this  reason 
They  cannot  grow  old. 

The  classical  thought  in  the  modern  setting  had 
caught  Lord  Stratford's  eye  and  interested  him 
in  the  poet,  whose  name  he  had  not  heard  before . 
**  Tell  me  now,"  he  said,  '*  something  about  the 
man  who  can  write  such  a  musical  lyric  as  this." 
After  theology  and  religion  the  revival  of  his 
early   turn   for   classical   scholarship  and   poetry 

169 


Great  Victorians 

brightened  and  gladdened  his  Kentish  retirement. 
''  Nearly  seventy  years  ago,"  he  explained,  '*  Mr. 
Murray  published  my  little  poem,  '  Bonaparte,' 
in  which  my  severest  critic,  my  cousin  George, 
discovered  some  beautiful  lines,  though  he  did 
not  altogether  like  its  tone.  Lord  Byron  was 
more  unreservedly  complimentary.  The  author 
of  '  Childe  Harold  '  had  himself  written  an  ode 
on  the  same  subject  in  the  same  year.  '  Can- 
ning's,' he  said,  '  is  infinitely  better  than  mine, 
and  certainly  the  best  thing  he  has  ever  written. 
I  always  knew  him  for  a  man  of  talent,  but  did 
not  suspect  him  of  possessing  all  the  family  gifts 
in  such  perfection.'  " 

Lord  Stratford  throughout  his  whole  ambas- 
sadorial term  had  always  kept  up  his  house  in 
Grosvenor  Square.  Thither,  therefore,  he  first 
went  when,  in  1858,  he  finally  re-settled  in  his 
native  land.  His  attachment,  from  domestic 
associations,  to  Tunbridge  Wells  made  him  a 
constant  visitor  to  its  neighbourhood,  and  caused 
him  to  buy,  in  one  of  its  pleasantest  spots,  the 
dwelling  which  eventually  developed  itself  into 
Frant  Court.  Till  late  in  the  seventies  his  pen 
was  constantly  busy  in  The  Times,  and  his 
speeches  were  heard  at  short  intervals  in  Par- 
liament whenever  some  fresh  phase  of  the  Eastern 
question    asserted   itself,    or    some   special   topic, 

170 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

appealing  strongly  to  his  deepest  convictions, 
emerged  from  the  welter  of  talk  about  Anglo- 
Turkish  and  Russian  relationships.  Such,  in  par- 
ticular, was  the  Porte's  treatment  of  Christian 
missionaries.  "Apart  from  this,"  he  told  both 
Lord  Beaconsfield  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  "he  did 
not  despair  of  finding  a  barrier  against  Russian 
aggression  in  a  belt  of  Christian  States  under 
the  Sultan's  suzerainty.  If  that  could  be  done 
the  material  would  be  ready  to  hand  for  forming 
a  Christian  Empire  administered  by  Eastern 
Christians."  His  hopes  were  never  realized. 
The  extravagances  and  barbarities  of  Abd-ul- 
Aziz  and  the  failure  of  the  European  Powers  to 
enforce  their  periodically  prescribed  reforms  im- 
posed, as  he  thought,  on  England  the  duty  of 
saving   the   Turks   from   themselves. 

These,  however,  are  matters  of  history.  They 
have  been  related  at  once  with  fullness,  clearness, 
and  succinctness  by  Mr.  Stanley  Lane-Poole  in 
his  excellent  and  exhaustive  biography,  of  so 
much  use  to  the  present  writer  in  confirming, 
checking,  correcting,  or  enlarging  his  own  im- 
pressions, originally  received  more  than  forty 
years    ago. 

Aristocracies,  it  has  been  said,  rich  in  force  are 
wanting  in  the  ideas  to  be  found  in  democracies. 
Of  neither  polity  does  Stratford  Canning  stand 

171 


Great  Victorians 

out  as  a  representative.  Belonging  by  birth  to 
the  most  powerful  and  prosperous  section  of  the 
middle  class,  by  training,  education,  social  inter- 
course, and  tastes  he  personified  the  permeation 
of  the  order  from  which  he  rose  with  the  patriot- 
ism, the  consuming  eagerness  for  national  service 
of  which,  during  his  early  days,  Chatham  and 
Chatham's  greater  son  were  looked  back  upon 
as  the  most  perfect  embodiments  known  to 
English    history. 

Of  all  our  chancelleries  none  has  displayed  so 
m1ich  of  supreme  excellence  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  deplorable  deficiency  on  the  other,  as 
the  British  Embassy  at  Constantinople.  The 
eighteenth-century  line  of  English  ambassadors 
at  the  Porte  was  opened  suitably  to  that  patrician 
epoch  by  Edward  Wortley  Montagu,  husband  of 
the  famous  Lady  Mary,  who  on  betrothal  had 
received  from  her  future  husband  a  copy  of  the 
Roman  historian  Quintus  Curtius,  instead  of  an 
engagement  ring.  In  the  Victorian  age  a  real 
access  of  importance  and  power  was  first  given 
to  the  same  residence  on  the  Golden  Horn  by  the 
illustrious  type  of  the  middle-class  growth  to 
ascendancy  now  recalled.  After  that  Whitehall 
accredited  no  representative  of  the  first  calibre 
to  the  Porte  till  Sir  William  White.  He,  as  yet 
the  only  lineal  descendant  of  the  great  "  Eltchi," 

172 


Ambassadors  at  Constantinople 

received  an  even  more  impressive  sobriquet  from 
the  Turk,  "  the  British  bear,"  not  from  any  surli- 
ness or  even  asperity  of  manner,  but  from  his 
rare  force  of  character,  his  refusal  to  be  con- 
quered by  obstacles,  his  ursine  acuteness  in  scent- 
ing intrigue  and  foreseeing  the  possible  conse- 
quence   of   remote   diplomatic   moves. 

My  first  acquaintance,  shortly  afterwards 
ripening  into  something  like  intimacy,  with  this 
remarkable  man  began  in  Paris  at  the  late  Dr. 
Alan  Herbert's  dinner-table,  long  before  he  rose 
to  European  fame.  An  international  exhibition 
was  then  in  progress.  Thither  we  all  adjourned 
after  dinner  to  pass  what  for  some  of  us,  certainly 
for  me,  was  the  pleasantest  and  most  instructive 
evening  yet  ever  known.  The  show  in  the 
Champs  Elysees  abounded  in  exhibits  from 
obscure  little  countries  known  to  most  only  by 
name.  Sir  William  White  found  in  them  the 
opportunity  for  the  most  delightful  and  unpro- 
fessorial  discourse  concerning  the  fresh  light 
thrown  by  them  on  our  knowledge  about  the 
industrial  and  commercial  future  of  the  com- 
munities from  which  they  came. 

Commencing  as  a  consular  clerk,  he  had  made 
his  mark  by  grasping  the  importance  of  apparent 
trifles.  The  best  record  of  his  progress  to  dis- 
tinction and  power  shows  itself  in  the  protocols 

173 


Great  Victorians 

of  the  Constantinople  Conference  (1885). 
These,  as  kept  by  Gabriel  Hanotaux,  form  the 
materials  for  a  faithful  portrait  of  White  at  work. 
Bulgarians,  Roumanians,  Servians,  Montenegrins 
— Sir  William  White,  the  best  type  of  the 
modern  Ambassador  the  second  half  of  the 
Victorian  era  had  seen,  knew  them  all,  and  was 
recognized  by  the  whole  Bulgarian  people  in 
1885  for  their  one  trustworthy  agent  in  unifica- 
tion. Hence  on  September  i  8th  their  deposition 
of  the  Turkish  Governor -General  and  their  poro- 
clamation  of  the  Union  which  German  machina- 
tions had  prevented  at  the  Berlin  Congress  of 
1878,  even  as  the  same  influences  proved  equally 
hostile  to  it  in  the  Bucharest  Treaty  of  1 9 1 3 . 

Just  a  generation  has  passed  since,  at  the  date 
now  mentioned,  Prussian  intrigue  brought  about 
the  Turkish  occupation  of  Bulgarian  provinces. 
Then  came  the  Servian  attack  on  Bulgaria,  left 
bare  for  the  moment,  by  a  German  trick,  of  its 
army.  These  troops,  however,  were  at  once  re- 
called, reached  Slivnitsa  after  a  march  of 
seventy -two  hours,  and  under  Prince  Alexander 
of  Battenberg  hurled  back  King  Milan  to  the 
place  from  which  he  had  come.  In  so  doing  they 
astounded  Europe,  and  caused  no  less  an  expert 
in  matters  of  this  sort  than  Sir  Robert  Morier, 
then  our  Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg,  to  con- 

174 


Ambassadors  at   Constantinople 

gratulate  his  Constantinople  colleague,  Sir 
William  White,  on  the  consummate  piece  of 
cosmic  work  which,  supported  at  home  by  the 
Secretary  of  State,  Lord  Salisbury,  he  had  seen 
carried  through.  Since  Sir  William  W^hite 
(1824-91)  in  the  Near  East,  and  Sir  Julian 
Pauncefote  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  the 
one  really  successful  Ambassador  we  have  had 
is  Lord  Bryce,  a  product  of  much  the  same 
academic  training  as  Stratford  Canning  himself. 
In  addition  to  his  many  other  distinctions  of  the 
Isis,  our  late  Ambassador  to  Washington  won 
the  Gaisford  Greek  verse  prize  by  translating 
Tennyson's  "  May  Queen  "  into  Theocritean  hexa- 
meters, such  as  no  one  would  have  admired  more 
than  Lord  Stratford  himself  ;  for  while  that  com- 
position was  being  read  in  the  Sheldonian,  the 
great  "  Eltchi  "  in  his  Kentish  retirement,  in  inter- 
vals of  more  serious  work,  was  rendering  nursery 
rhymes  into  Greek  iambics,  and  finding  parts  of 
*' Little  Jack  Horner"  rather  untranslatable. 


175 


CHAPTER    IV 

PALMERSTONIANA 

The  parliamentary  contest  at  Tiverton — "Cupid"  on  the  Tiver 
ton  hustings — A  bit  of  Butcher  Rowcliffe's  mind — "No 
chaif !  " — The  accustomed  irony  of  Socrates  matched  by  the 
habitual  banter  of  Palmerston — A  visit  to  the  Prime  Minister 
in  Downing  Street — What  he  looked  and  said — Repeated 
constitutionals  from  the  standing  desk  to  the  inkpot  and 
writing-table — His  narrative  of  the  family  history  of  the 
movements  ending  in  putting  down  "  hells  " — Cosmos  out  of 
chaos  on  the  writing-table — Lady  Palmerston's  invitation 
cards — The  "basket  trick" — "Next  man  in" — "Bless  my 
soul,  how  very  singular  !  " — "  I  hope  you're  better  " — Man 
of  that  age  sure  to  have  been  out  of  sorts — Palmerston  and 
the  Alorning  Post — George  Smythe's  prediction  about  the 
Tory  Party — Too  busy  to  read  the  papers — His  Tory  days — 
Disgrace  at  Court — Sir  Henry  Bulwer's  coaching  in  foreign 
politics  and  its  result — Palmerston  with  those  about  him  in 
Paris  and  the  pocket-handkerchief  which  won't  fall  out — 
"Big  Ben's"  two  faces — "James"  or  "Palmerston"? — 
Palmerston  as  sketched  by  Disraeli  in  1836 — His  treatment 
of  Talleyrand  and  its  political  consequence — The  diplo- 
matist in  the  Cambridge  House  drawing-room — "  How  like 
his  father  ! " — Things  one  would  rather  not  have  said — The 
legendary  bottle  of  brown  sherry  a  day — The  historical 
Amontillado — The  hard  names  that  break  no  bones  but 
make  enemies — "An  absolute  and  Absolutist  fool" — "The 
next  thing  to  an  idiot " — The  elderly  gallant  in  the  boudoir 
— "  I  think  it  most  gentlemanly  " — The  Schleswig-Holstein 
176 


Palmerstoniana 

question  understood  by  three  persons  only — Lady  Palmer- 
ston's  smacking  kiss  in  the  lobby — Pam  and  the  Duke — 
Pam  on  Queen  Victoria  and  the  Duchess  of  Kent — How 
foreign  statesmen  cooled  their  heels  in  Palmerston's  waiting- 
room — What  they  thought  and  said  of  it — How  to  deal  with 
Austrian  outrages  and  to  enforce  English  rights  in  Brazilian 
waters — The  cost  of  a  hatless  walk  on  Brocket  Terrace — The 
ruling  passion  strong  in  death — ''That's  article  ninety-eight; 
now  go  on  to  the  next." 

In  the  late  spring  or  early  summer  of   1859  the 
present  writer,  then  a  small  boy  who  had  broken 
bounds,   was  one  of  a  crowd  gathered  round  a 
West  Country  hustings  to  witness  an  event  much 
talked  of  in   those  years  at  the   return  of  bur- 
gesses for  the  hilly  little  town  looking  down  upon 
the   confluence   of   the   rivers   Exe   and   Loman. 
That   geographical    fact    expressed   itself   in   the 
old  name  of  the  place,  "  Twy-ford-ton,"  corrupted 
into  the  modern  Tiverton.     Here,  after  his  ejec- 
tion by  South   Hampshire  in    1835,   Palmerston 
had  found  the   seat  which  he  afterwards  never 
lost.    His  re-elections  always  formed  a  feature  in 
each  successive  appeal  to  the  country,  and  were 
attended    by    the    incidents    my    recollection    of 
which  is   still   fresh.     It  was   in  the  thick  of  a 
parliamentary  contest.     Once  before  within  the 
same    twelvemonth    the    constituency    had    gone 
through   the   form  of  returning,   with  the   Hon. 
G.  Denman  for  colleague,  the  debonair  septua- 

177  M 


Great  Victorians 

genarian,  who  had  not  yet  outgrown  his  early 
nickname  of  "  Cupid,"  and  who  was  now  address- 
ing it.  In  a  rather  chilly  air  he  stood,  bare- 
headed and  beaming,  not  far  from  the  gateway  of 
what  had  once  been  the  castle  of  the  Earls  of 
Devon.  The  temper  of  the  multitude  showed 
no  signs  of  preoccupation  with  serious  politics. 
Men,  women,  and  children,  country  gentlemen, 
clergymen,  and  loafers  had  met  simply  for 
amusement.  The  proceedings  that  they  watched 
became  almost  a  roaring  farce,  especially  at  the 
point  of  the  appearance  among  them  of  a  man 
in  a  blue  smock  with  certain  articles  of  cutlery 
dangling  from  his  side.  Such  were  the  outward 
insignia  of  the  very  independent  elector  who,  on 
these  occasions,  played  the  part  of  the  "  devil's 
advocate."  This  was  the  champion  heckler,  who 
made  the  name  of  Rowcliffe  famous,  and  without 
whose  contribution  to  it  the  fun  of  the  fair  on 
the  West  Country  hustings  would  have  been 
incomplete . 

The  ludicrous  episode  was  always  opened  by 
the  Tiverton  censor  to  something  like  the  follow- 
ing effect  :  "  The  noble  lord,"  said  Rowcliffe, 
"  may  call  himself  a  Liberal ;  he  is  really  the 
best  representative  the  Conservatives  could  pos- 
sibly have.  I  hope,  however,  he  will  honestly 
answer  my  present  queries."     Palmerston  smiled 

178 


Palmerstoniana 

assent  and  congratulated   his  old  friend  on  the 
retention  of  his  youthful  vigour,  and  with  it  his 
prejudices.     "  I  only  regret,"  Palmerston  added, 
"  that  it  seems  as  if  Mr.  Rowcliffe  and  I  were 
never  destined  to  agree  in  our  political  faith .    Am 
I  for  the  ballot  and  manhood  suffrage?     No,   I 
am  against  both.     How  far,  then,  will  I  go  with 
the  suffrage?     Well,  I  will  be  quite  straightfor- 
ward with  Mr.  Rowcliffe,  and  at  once  say  I  will 
not    tell    him.      After   the    confidence    my    con- 
stituents have  reposed  in  me,  I  hold  it  my  duty 
to  act  according  to  my  judgment  in  all  matters 
relating   to   Reform.      I    hope   that   the   political 
difference  between  my  friend  and  myself  will  not 
alter  our  private  friendship.     But  the  man  who 
does  agree  with  everybody  is  not  worth  having 
any  one  to  agree  with  him."     This  formed  the 
only  specimen  of  the  Palmerstonian  banter  which 
I  ever  had  the  opportunity  of  hearing.     I  could 
have  heard  no  better  specimen  of  the  habitual 
persiflage  of  Palmerston  than  that  on  the  Tiverton 
hustings  just  described,  if  I  had  regularly  wit- 
nessed at  Westminster  his  best-known  perform- 
ances throughout  the  six  years  of  his  second  and 
last    premiership,     1859-65.      The    quick,    firm 
step  with  which  he  entered  the  House  I  had  seen 
in  the  lobby.     The  last  of  the  years  just  named 
was    the    first    of    my    London    experiences    and 

179 


Great  Victorians 

brought  me  permission  to  present  myself  before 
the  great  man  in  Downing  Street,  just  three 
months  before  he  died.  His  movement  was  then 
brisk  and  elastic.  After  a  few  words  of  welcome 
he  swung  up  to  the  desk  at  which  he  worked,  to 
finish  a  few  papers.  As  he  paced  from  the 
desk  to  the  table,  "  I  believe,"  he  said,  standing 
up  all  the  while,  *'  in  getting  whatever  exercise 
one  can  ;  and  one  can  do  a  mile  in  one's  room  as 
well  as  in  the  street."  These  words  explained 
the  arrangement  by  which  the  inkpot  was  placed 
on  a  table  some  three  or  four  yards  distant  from 
the  writing-desk  at  which  he  stood.  Every  fresh 
dip  of  the  pen  therefore  involved  one  in  a 
series  of  little  pedestrian  exercises,  which  collec- 
tively might  have  mounted  up  to  quite  a  "  con- 
stitutional." I  had  noticed  outside  his  horse,  with 
a  groom  at  its  head,  waiting  for  him.  When  not 
walking,  he  rode.  After  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
he  was  the  last  of  political  celebrities  who  for  his 
progress  through  the  West  End  streets  preferred 
the  saddle  to  the  brougham,  and,  when  on  horse- 
back between  Piccadilly  and  Whitehall,  was 
cheered  by  the  crowd  within  a  fortnight  or  ten 
days  of  his  death. 

*'  Get  Lord  Palmerston  if  you  can,"  I  had  been 
previously  told  by  Mr.  Baillie  Cochrane,  the 
Buckhurst     of     "  Coningsby  "     and     the     Lord 

1 80 


Palmerstoniana 

Lamington  of  1880,  *' to  tell  you  how  he  came 
to  form  the  committee  which  in  1846  put  down 
all  the  public  gaming-houses.  You  will  find,  I 
think,  one  of  your  relatives  had  a  good  deal  to 
do  with  it."  Lord  Palmerston's  mention  of  that 
relative  soon  gave  me  the  opportunity  of  acting 
on  the  suggestion,  "Your  uncle,"  he  said,  '*  sat 
on  the  committee.  He  had,  indeed,  given  me 
no  rest  till  I  consented  to  it.  He  was  a  member 
of  Crockford's,  and  looked  in  there  for  play  most 
nights  in  the  week.  No  doubt  he  had  seen  many 
friends  ruined  by  the  club.  But  the  places  he 
was  particularly  concerned  to  put  down  v/ere  not 
of  this  sort.  They  were  rather  the  low-class  hells 
which  abounded  in  the  purlieus  of  Leicester 
Square  and  Covent  Garden,  amounting,  I  believe, 
to  something  like  thirty  or  forty  between  Picca- 
dilly Circus  and  Long  Acre.  It  seems,"  he  con- 
tinued, *'  some  relation  of  his,  and  therefore,  I 
suppose,  of  yours,  I  think  a  cousin,  while  an 
Oxford  undergraduate  and  up  for  the  Boat  Race, 
suddenly  disappeared  from  the  Opera  House 
lobby,  where  he  had  been  seeing  a  lady  into 
her  carriage  while  his  friends  went  on  before 
to  Evans's  supper -rooms.  Neither  here  nor  else- 
where did  he  join  them,  and  was  never,  I  believe, 
seen  or  heard  of  till  several  years  later,  when  he 
startled    his    family    by    entering    his     father's 

181 


Great  Victorians 

Oxfordshire  rectory  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 
Since  he  was  there  last  he  had  been  to  South 
Africa,  made  some  money,  for  the  first  time  in 
his  Hfe,  and  got  into  the  Cape  Parhament.     The 
explanation   of    his    being    suddenly   lost    to   his 
friends  was  that  on  the  night  of  his  vanishing  he 
had  found  himself  nearly  cleaned  out.    Believing 
in    his   luck,    he   made    his   way   to   one   of   the 
'hazard'   dens   in    Cranborne    Street.      Here   he 
staked  some  of  the  few  coins  still  in  his  pocket, 
of  course  lost  them,  dared  not  show  his  head  at 
home,    took    coach    to    Southampton,    found    a 
steamer  starting  for  South  Africa,  took  it,  and, 
having   eventually   filled   his   purse,   thought   he 
would  like  to  see  once  more  how  they  fared  at 
home." 

Lord  Palmerston  occupied  the  frequent  inter- 
vals of  this  little  narrative  with  occasionally  ply- 
ing his  pen,  now  at  his  standing  desk,  now  at 
the  table.  The  latter  was  in  a  state  of  extra- 
ordinary confusion,  papers  of  all  kinds  piled  high 
above  one  another.  Diving  into  these,  he  ex- 
tricated a  number  of  envelopes,  into  which  he 
proceeded  to  put  letters  or  cards,  taken  from  one 
of  his  red  boxes,  and  already  prepared  for  send- 
ing off.  These,  I  afterwards  knew,  were  in- 
vitations for  Lady  Palmerston's  famous  "  Satur- 
days," or,  in  one  or  two  instances  perhaps,  for 

182 


Palmerstoniana 

some  other  hospitality  at  that  Cambridge  House 
where  one  of  its  raiaster's  severest  French  critics 
was  constrained  to  admit,  *'  On  dine  fort  bien 
chez  lui." 

The  most  characteristic  feature  in  the  apart- 
ment, where  I  thought  I  had  rather  overstayed 
my  time,  only  struck  me  a  minute  or  two  before 
I  rose  to  leave.  It  might,  with  literal  truth,  have 
been  called  the  basket  trick.  By  an  agency  of 
which  I  could  see  nothing,  a  basket  of  papers 
reached  the  minister's  table.  Directly  it  had  done 
so  the  minister  became  deep  in  their  contents  and 
placed  his  lips  to  a  speaking-tube,  thus  signify- 
ing, as  I  inferred,  to  an  invisible  attendant  his 
readiness  for  another  visitor.  While  passing 
through  the  door,  I  met  a  gentleman  who  evi- 
dently had  an  appointment  with  the  great  man. 
Had  I  been  privileged  to  witness  the  interview, 
this  is  what  I  should  have  heard  :  '*  How  very 
remarkable  !  "  would  have  been  the  Premier's 
greeting.  "  I  was  just  thinking  of  your  matter 
when  you  were  announced  ;  I  have,  you  see,  got 
all  the  papers  relating  to  it  here.  Your  interests, 
therefore,  are  being  well  looked  after,  so  that 
you  may  expect  very  shortly  to  hear  from  me 
again."  This  genuinely  Palmerstonian  farce  was 
played  probably  more  than  once  every  day.  Its 
"  behind  the  scenes  "   prelude  was  the   sighting 

183 


Great  Victorians 

by  a  quick -eyed  private  secretary  of  a  stranger 
outside  bearing  down  on  the  ministerial  resi- 
dence. The  timely  warning  through  the  tube 
enabled  the  First  Lord  invisibly  and  inaudibly  to 
order  the  necessary  documents  to  be  disinterred 
from  their  pigeon-hole.  The  other  acts  followed 
in  the  order  just  described. 

Except  as  a  boy  at  the  Tiverton  hustings  I 
never  heard  any  of  Lord  Palmerston's  speeches. 
In  the  lobby  of  the  House,  however,  I  saw  him 
more  than  once,  the  picture  of  good-humoured  and 
smiling  composure,  bestow  a  few  friendly  words 
alike  on  opponents  and  supporters.  These  were 
the  verbal  salutes  that  surprised  and  delighted 
their  recipients  by  their  interest  in  their  welfare 
and  their  acquaintance  with  their  personal  or 
family  concerns.  To  a  gentleman  advancing  in 
years  would  be  addressed  the  inquiry  whether 
he  was  better,  "  because,"  as  the  questioner  ex- 
plained to  a  friend,  "  a  man  of  that  age  is  sure 
to  have  been  recently  out  of  sorts." 

Lord  Palmerston's  organ  in  the  daily  Press  had 
always  been  the  Morning  Post.  On  foreign 
politics  he  inspired  its  best  articles,  written  as 
these  were  sometimes  by  his  great  journalistic 
ally,  the  late  Algernon:  Borthwick  (Lord  Glenesk), 
even  when  editor  himself,  and  now  and  then  by 
the  happily  still  extant  Mr.  T.  G.  Bowles,  whose 

184 


Palmerstoniana 

chief  writing,  however,  in  the  paper  belonged  to 
a  later  period. 

*'  Sharp  work  !  "  was  Palmerston*s  well-known 
comment  on  Napoleon's  coup  d'etat  of  Decem- 
ber 2,  1 8  5  I .  So  far,  he  explained,  as  the  remark 
expressed  approval  of  what  had  been  done,  it 
was  made,  not  in  his  official  capacity  but  as  a 
private  individual.  The  Second  Empire  forged 
a  new  link  in  his  connection  with  the  great  organ 
of  the  fashionable  world.  Shortly  before  that 
event  Algernon  Borthwick  had  gone  to  Paris 
as  resident  representative  of  the  newspaper 
managed  by  his  father,  the  well-known  Peter 
Borthwick. I  The  Post  in  modern  times  was 
always  High  Tory  and  High  Church.  Notwith- 
standing its  Palmerstonian  associations,  it  dis- 
approved of  the  Palmerstonian  bishops  as 
strongly  as  did  Samuel  Wilberforce  or  George 
Anthony  Denison.  It  was  entirely  at  one  with 
Palmerston  in  approving  the  establishment  of 
the  Second  Empire.  Out  of  that  agreement  grew 
its  understanding,  on  European  affairs  only,  with 
Palmerston,  who  showed  his  regard  for  its  editor 
by  giving  him  exclusive  news  and  whatever 
advice  he  might  find  useful.  Palmerston  had  a 
personal  friend  in  George  Smythe,  the  reputed 
original  of  "  Coningsby."  Smythe  occasionally 
*  Conservative  M.P.  for  Evesham,  1835-41. 

185 


Great  Victorians 

wrote  paragraphs  for  the  Post,  and  in  one  of 
them  embodied  the  Palmerstonian  sentiment  that 
the  Tory  Party  would  not  exist  in  six  months. 
Lord  Glenesk,  who  knew  Disraeh  as  well  as  he 
did  Palmerston,  himself  told  me  that  the  author  of 
*'  Coningsby  "  considered  something  of  its  imme- 
diate success  due  to  Palmerston's  admiration  for 
it,  expressed  wherever  he  went.i  On  January 
30,  1856,  the  Morning  Post  published  in  its 
largest  type  an  article  on  American  affairs  that 
struck  the  chief  supporters  of  the  newspaper, 
Lord  Clarendon  and  others,  as  most  mischievous. 
Lord  Clarendon,  therefore,  as  Foreign  Secretary, 
complained  to  his  chief.  The  Prime  Minister 
"  Ha-ha'd  !  "  in  reply,  "  I  have  been  too  busy 
lately  to  read  the  papers."  This  was  the  kind  of 
repartee  practised  by  him  in  season  and  out  of 
season  upon  the  most  different  occasions,  but 
always  with  the  happiest  results. 

Before  another  illustration  is  given,  these  im- 
pressions may  be  placed  in  clearer  perspective  by 
recalling  one  or  two  biographical  details  suffi- 
ciently accessible  no  doubt,  but  sometimes  for- 

^  Palmerston  and  Disraeli  had  been  personal  friends  from  the 
time  that  the  former  was  first  heard  of.  Their  oratorical  duels  on 
the  floor  of  the  House  were  purely  stage  play.  Mr.  William 
Longman,  of  Paternoster  Row,  told  me  that  Palmerston  had 
spoken  of  "Coningsby"  to  him  as  first-rate  in  every  respect, 
especially  its  characters,  which  were  perfect  portraits. 

186 


Palmerstoniana 

gotten,  and  in  a  single  instance,  now  to  be  men- 
tioned, perhaps  unknown.  The  most  plucky  and 
popular  Harrow  boy  of  his  time,  as  Palmerston 
was  accounted,  went  through  the  intermediate 
stage  of  a  Scotch  University  (Edinburgh)  before 
going  to  Cambridge  in  1803.  These  were  his 
High  Tory  days.  The  influence  of  his  first  master, 
Canning,  did  not  incline  him  to  any  Liberal  ten- 
dencies till  many  years  later.  He  remained  an 
enemy  to  Liberalism  in  every  form  till  1828. 

As  a  Tory  he  was  beaten  in  the  Cambridge 
University  Election  of  1806.  Three  years  later, 
without  any  change  of  political  faith,  the  merest 
chance  opened  for  him  the  path  to  official  pro- 
motion. Spencer  Perceval,  the  Prime  Minister 
of  1809,  offered  Pemberton  Milnes,  a  repre- 
sentative Yorkshire  squire,  best  known  as  Lord 
Houghton's  father,  a  place  in  his  Cabinet  at  the 
Exchequer  or  the  War  Office— whichever  he  pre- 
ferred. Milnes  declined,  it  would  seem,  out  of 
mere  indifference.  Palmerston  accepted,  and 
with  it  took  the  first  step  toward  political  fortune. 

For  six  years  of  the  Victorian  age  j(  1846-52) 
Palmerston  found  the  most  congenial  of  our 
ambassadors  and  serviceable  of  his  political 
agents  in  Sir  Henry  Bulwer,  Lord  Bailing.  This 
most  typical  specimen  of  the  Palmerstonian 
diplomatist     began     his     ambassadorial     course 

187 


Great  Victorians 

at  Madrid  in  1843,  continued  it  at  Florence, 
then  the  seat  of  the  Italian  Court,  in  1852, 
and  ended  it  at  Constantinople  as  Stratford 
Canning's  successor  in  1858.  Whatever  his 
residence,  his  hand  was  on  the  pulse  of  every 
European  Chancellery.  Though  never  quartered 
at  Paris,  he  wias  always  in  a  special  degree  behind 
the  diplomatic  scenes  during  the  early  days  of 
the  Second  Empire.  As  a  consequence  Palmer- 
ston  heard  from  him  every  continental  incident 
or  even  piece  of  gossip  before  it  reached  his 
Cabinet  colleagues,  while  he  was  Lord  Aberdeen's 
Home  Secretary.  At  critical  seasons  Palmer- 
ston  met  Bulwer  in  Paris,  while  occasionally 
Sir  Stratford  Canning  completed  the  little  party. 
One  of  these  gatherings  was  described  to  me  by 
one  who  assisted  at  them.  This  was  a  first  cousin 
of  mine,  Edward  Herbert,  killed  in  the  Marathon 
massacre  of  1870.  On  the  occasion  now  referred 
to  he  was  in  Paris  for  diplomatic  business,  and 
assisted  at  the  meeting  of  his  chiefs,  dining  with 
Lord  Palmerston,  Sir  H.  Bulwer,  and  M.  Thiers. 
The  French  statesman  asked  the  English  if  he 
thought  the  "  sick  man,"  as  the  Czar  Nicholas 
called  the  Turk,  was  about  to  die.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  characteristic  than  Palmer- 
ston's  reply,  noted  at  the  time  by  my  relative  and 

passed  on  to  me  :    "I  was  one  day  walking  in 

188 


Palmerstoniana 

the  streets  of  London,  when  a  fellow  foot- 
passenger  told  me  that  my  pocket-handkerchief 
was  hanging  out,  and  that  I  should  lose  it. 
'  Thank  you,  sir,'  I  answered,  '  but  unless  some 
one  pulls  it  out  it  will  not  fall.'  Turkey  is  in  the 
same  position.  If  she  be  not  thrown  down  she 
will  maintain  her  place  perfectly." 

The  most  authentic  channels  for  the  transmis- 
sion of  Palmerstoniana  to  a  later  generation  were 
Sir  Mount  Stuart  Grant  Duff  and  Abraham  Hay- 
ward.  After  the  completion  of  the  new  Houses 
of  Parliament  in  1 8  5 1  much  had  to  be  done 
before  "Big  Ben  "  could  be  got  into  perfect 
working  order.  "  For  a  long  time  only  two  sides 
of  the  great  clock  worked  properly.  A  propos 
of  the  deficiency,  at  a  little  dinner-party,  including 
not  only  Palmerston  but  his  most  fervid  assailant, 
the  Turcophil,  David  Urquhart,  some  one  sug- 
gested that  the  clock  should  be  called  Janus,  the 
patron  saint  of  politicians.  **  Or,"  he  added  in 
an  undertone,  looking  at  Urquhart,  **  as  you 
might  say  Palmerston."  Almost  inaudible  as  the 
whisper  seemed,  it  was  not  missed  by  the  Home 
Secretary's  quick  ear.  **  Very  good,"  he  mur- 
mured, with  his  accustomed  "  Ha-ha  !  "  and  drew 
the  talk  to  some  other  topic. 

*'  Permit  me  to  approach  you  in  the  spirit  of 
unity  ;    this  must  at  least  gratify  you,  if  novelty 

189 


Great  Victorians 

can  do  so.  Our  language  contains  no  expression 
of  scorn  which  has  not  been  exhausted  in  the 
celebration  of  your  character.  .  .  .  Your  dex- 
terity seems  a  happy  compound  of  the  smartness 
of  an  attorney's  clerk  and  the  intrigue  of  a  Greek 
of  the  Lower  Empire.  .  .  .  Having  attained  the 
acme  of  second-rate  statesmanship,  you  remain 
fixed  on  your  pedestal  for  years,  the  great  Apollo 
of  aspiring  under-strappers."  These,  with  other 
kindred  flowers  of  rhetoric,  formed  the  staple  of 
Disraeli's  Runnymede  letter  to  Palmerston  in 
1836.  No  word  of  it  is  likely  to  have  been  read 
out  of  England.  It  would,  however,  appeal  more 
directly  to  a  foreign  than  an  English  public.  Or, 
to  speak  more  correctly,  it  presaged  a  personal 
antipathy  against  Palmerston  which  came  to  a 
head  on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel  during  the 
negotiations  for  creating  an  independent  Belgium'. 
These  were  fomented  so  systematically  by  Talley- 
rand as  nearly  to  cause  a  rupture  in  Anglo-French 
relations.  Talleyrand,  then  the  French  Ambas- 
sador in  London,  was  possessed  with  a  consuming 
sense  of  his  own  importance  and  superiority  to 
the  rest  of  the  Corps  diplomatique .  Palmer- 
ston when  head  of  the  Foreign  Oflice  received 
him  in  the  same  easy  way  that  he  received  all 
his  colleagues.  Once  or  twice,  however,  he  kept 
the   veteran   diplomatist   and  wit  waiting  in  his 

190 


Palmerstoniana 

ante-room.  This  neglect  had  been  received  as 
a  personal  insult.  The  slighted  envoy,  on  return- 
ing to  Paris,  poisoned  his  Royal  master's,  Louis 
Philippe's,  ears  with  all  the  current  stories  of 
Palmerston's  flippant  insincerity  and  falseness. 
These  so  worked  upon  the  Orleanist  monarch 
that  he  was  gradually  induced  to  adopt  his 
Ambassador's  feelings  towards  the  English  Secre- 
tary of  State,  and  look  upon  him  as  the  chief 
enemy  of  himself  as  well.  These  private  senti- 
ments had  by  and  by  their  political  consequence. 
The  French  Government,  instead  of,  as  Palmer- 
ston  wished,  throwing  over  the  Spanish  Legiti- 
mists, gravitated  more  and  more  closely  to  the 
Carlists. 

Notwithstanding  his  easy,  genial  manner  and 
social  charm,  Palmerston  had  trod  on  so  many 
diplomatic  toes  that  all  the  malicious  stories  in 
any  way  connected  with  him  were  at  once  re- 
peated in  every  Chancellery  and  club.  Such  was 
an  anecdote  now  to  be  given,  and  after  all  these 
years  requiring  a  few  explanatory  words.  Lady 
Palmerston,  the  first  Viscount  Melbourne's 
daughter,  had  for  her  first  husband  the  fifth 
Earl  Cowper.  Even,  however,  before  possessing 
her  hand,  Palmerston,  it  was  no  secret,  opened 
her  heart.  The  third  Marchioness  of  Salisbury, 
Lady  Beaconsfield,  and  Mrs.  Gladstone  all  ren- 

191 


Great  Victorians 

dered  services  to  their  respective  lords  which 
have  passed  into  a  proverb.  In  social  tact,  per- 
sonal charm,  resourcefulness,  and  heart-whole 
devotion  none  of  them  could  have  surpassed  Lady 
Palmerston .  Her  son,  William  Cowper,  was  being 
introduced  in  her  drawing-room  by  his  stepfather 
to  a  foreign  Ambassador,  who,  not  catching  the 
name,  looked  inquiringly  at  Palmerston,  then  said 
with  a  smile,  "  On  voit  bien,  monsieur,  que  c'est 
votre  fils  ;    il  vous  ressemble  tant." 

When  I  first  saw  at  Tiverton  the  man  who  had 
represented  the  place  for  just  over  thirty  years 
I  heard  the  story,  and,  even  as  a  boy,  instinctively 
doubted  it,  that  Lady  Palmerston  cured  any  little 
ailment  in  her  husband  by,  on  its  earliest  sign, 
making  him  drink  a  bottle  of  brown  sherry  a 
day.  Chance  enabled  me  to  seek  confirmation 
or  contradiction  of  this  story  from  the  late  Lord 
Granville's  brother,  Mr.  E.  E.  Leveson-Gower, 
whose  acquaintance  I  owed  to  one  of  my  oldest 
and  kindest  friends,  the  late  Mr.  H.  S.  Stokes, 
the  Clerk  of  the  Peace  at  Bodmin,  and  the  highly 
cultivated  and  noble-minded  gentleman,  as  Mr. 
Leveson-Gower  justly  called  him,  who  managed 
his  election  business  for  many  years.  The  answer 
to  my  inquiries  came  as  follows  :  "  Lord  Palmer- 
ston in  all  his  life  never  drank  as  much  brown 

sherry  as  would  fill  a  pint  bottle.     He  took  tea 

192 


I 


Palmerstoniana 

and  coffee  very  sparingly,  and  wine  of  any  kind 
more  sparingly  still.  But  before  mounting  his 
horse  for  the  ride  to  Whitehall  in  the  morning  he 
sipped  with  his  biscuit  a  glass  of  the  palest  and 
driest  Amontillado  or  Manzanares  sherry.  At 
dinner  in  the  usual  way  he  might  take  as  much 
of  the  same  vintage  again." 

As  regards  his  intercourse  with  foreign  diplo- 
matists, he  always  attributed  his  success  in 
mystifying  them  to  his  way  of  speaking  the 
truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  which,  habituated 
to  speech  of  another  kind,  they  did  not  believe, 
and  so  perplexed  and  puzzled  themselves.  How- 
ever true  they  might  have  been,  some  of  the 
Palmerstonian  utterances  were  calculated  to  try 
the  patience,  if  they  did  not  obscure  the  under- 
standing, of  those  whom  they  concerned  or  who 
were  their  subjects.  Of  this  the  classical  instance 
belongs  to  the  Spanish  marriages  episode  in 
1846-7  (and  may  be  found  in  Ashley's  **  Palmer- 
ston,"  vol.  ii.  pp.  85-7).  He  then  described 
the  Duke  of  Cadiz,  two  months  afterwards  King 
of  Spain,  as  an  '*  absolute  and  Absolutist  fool  !  " 
while  the  Emperor  of  Austria  was  put  down  as 
the  '*  next  thing  to  an  idiot  I  " 

These  outbursts,  rather  than  the  other  little 
vagaries  too  well  known  to  be  repeated  here, 
and  greatly  exaggerated  at  the  time,  caused  Lady 

193  N 


Great  Victorians 

Palmerston  much  anxiety  as  to  their  pohtical 
results.  In  1861,  when  well  over  seventy,  he 
retained  many  of  the  personal  endowments  and 
tastes  which  had  won  for  him  the  name  of 
"  Cupid."  Lady  Shaftesbury^  as  his  relative  and 
well-wisher,  remonstrated  with  him  on  his  flirta- 
tions with  yoimg  married  women.  "  You  know/' 
she  said,  "it  is  really  most  ungentlemanly ;  it  is 
horribly  irreligious  ;  and,  besides,  it  can  never  be 
successful."  Now  for  the  incorrigible  old  gentle- 
man's reply.  "  As  regards  its  being  ungentle - 
manly,  that  is  a  question  of  taste  ;  I  think  it  most 
gentlemanly .  To  take  the  religious  point  of  view^ 
I  admit  the  custom  of  the  Churches  differs.  But 
about  its  being  unsuccessful,  your  ladyship  is 
totally  misinformed^  for  I  have  never  known  it 
fail." 

A  perfect  feminine  Gallio  in  her  way.  Lady 
Palmerston  cared  for  none  of  these  things,  or 
smiled  them  off  as  by  no  means  to  her  lord's  dis- 
credit. What  did  concern  her  was  the  appalling 
possibility  of  his  being  put  into  a  minority  on  an 
important  division.  In  the  year  just  mentioned 
came  the  Schleswig- Hoist ein  question,  with  all 
its  complications  and  its  more  critical  sequel. 
The  subject  in  many  of  its  bearings  was  excru- 
ciatingly abstruse,  and  was  thus  described  by 
Palmerston  himself  :   "  The  affair  of  the  Duchies 

194 


Palmerstoniana 

has  never  been  understood  by  more  than  three 
persons.  One  is  a  German  diplomatist,  and  he 
is  dead ;  the  second  is  a  Danish  professor,  who 
is  now  in  a  lunatic  asylum ;  the  third  is  myself, 
and  I  have  forgotten  it.'* 

Meanwhile,  the  wanton  attack  of  Germany  on 
Denmark  aroused  the  English  public  to  indig- 
nation, and  caused  the  Government,  which  would 
not  take  up  arm's  for  the  weaker  State,  to  tremble 
in  the  balance.  On  the  last  night  of  the  debate 
Lady  Palmerston  listened  in  evident  agitation 
from  her  box  in  the  gallery.  When  it  was  all 
over  she  rushed  downstairs  to  congratulate  her 
husband.  He  had  just  come  into  the  lobby; 
she  at  once  embraced  him  with  a  sounding  kiss. 
*'  Lady  Palmerston,"  said  to  me  the  late  Earl 
Granville,  "  did  more  than  keep  her  husband  in 
health  and  his  followers  together.  She  also  kept 
the  peace  between  him  and  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton, whom  he  had  never  forgiven  for  suddenly 
dismissing  him  from  the  Eoreign  Office  in  1834. 
In  that  year,  and  more  than  once  afterwards, 
though  few  historians,  and,  I  think,  no  diarists, 
have  brought  out  the  fact,  the  two  men  were 
constantly  doing  all  they  could  to  upset  each 
other.  The  Duke  relied  for  success  on  the  great- 
ness of  his  achievements  and  name,  Palmerston 
on  his  extraordinary  popularity.     It  was  not  till 

195 


Great  Victorians 

after  Huskisson's  death  in  1830  that  a  renewal 
of  personal  relations  became  possible.  Seven 
years  later  the  rivalry  returned  in  an  acuter  form 
than  ever.  One  of  the  Tory  ladies  at  the  Palace 
made  the  silly  but  fatal  mistake  of  supposing 
she  could  prejudice  the  young  Queen  Victoria 
against  her  early  Whig  surroundings  by  letting 
her  see  the  fun  into  which  the  smaller  Tory  news- 
papers turned  her  games  of  chess  with  Lord 
Melbourne,  her  filial  solicitude  for  his  health, 
and  her  girlish  gratification  at  Palmerston's  com- 
pliments to  her  industry  and  capacity,  carefully 
repeated  to  her  as  they  were  by  her  ladies  in  the 
Palmerstonian  interest.  The  present  writer  had 
another  of  Palmerston's  remarks  from  a  lady 
who  was  at  Windsor  at  the  time,  and  who  heard 
Lady  Charlemont  speak  of  the  credit  due  to  the 
Duchess  of  Kent  for  having  made  her  daughter 
what  she  was.  *' The  Duchess,"  interposed 
Palmerston,  *'  has  every  possible  merit.  But 
the  Queen  has  an  understanding  which  could 
be  made  by  no  one,  and  will  go  down  to 
history  as  the  greatest  Sovereign  of  her  sex 
whO'  ever  ruled  this  realm."  The  talk  was 
taken  up  by  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  who, 
as  a  proof  of  the  Queen's  industry  and 
capacity  for  work,  said  that  from  morning  to 
night  she  took  no  relaxation  from  her  duties,  and 

196 


Palmerstoniana 

that  when  her  maid  was  combing  out  her  hair  she 
was  surrounded  by  crimson  boxes  and  reading 
official  papers.  "And/'  said  Palmerston,  "it 
will  before  long  be  seen  that  Her  Majesty 
does  a  great  deal  more  than  this."  It  was,  as 
Palmerston  eventually  found  to  his  cost. 

The  Duchess  of  Sutherland's  tribute  is  of  the 
more  significance  because  only  a  few  days  before 
paying  it  she  had  been  sharply  rebuked  by  the 
Queen  for  keeping  dinner  waiting  half  an  hour. 
"It  is  not  so  much,"  the  Royal  lady  had  said, 
"  that  it  inconveniences  me^  but  it  tries  the 
patience   of  my   guests." 

Talleyrand  was  not  the  only  member  of  the 
diplomatic  circle  who  found  Palmerston  a  little 
trying.  The  present  Lord  Esher's  father-in-law, 
Sylvain  Vanderwere,  while  Belgian  Minister,  used 
to  say  :  "  When  the  Foreign  Secretary  gave  me 
an  appointment  he  always  kept  me  waiting  one 
or  two  hours,  and  sometimes  never  appeared  at 
all."  The  mass  of  Englishmen  may  have  heard 
stories  like  these  at  the  time,  only  to  laugh  at 
them  quite  in  the  Palmerstonian  manner.  And 
the  things  which  in  connection  with  their  favourite 
statesman  impressed  them  most  were  those  to- 
day almost  forgotten,  and  even  at  the  time  much 
less  talked  about  than  the  Don  Pacifico  incident. 
Such  was  the  Elorence  Mather  affair  in    1852. 

197 


Great  Victorians 

This  at  first  somewhat  shook  the  Palmerstonian 
prestige,  but  was  afterwards  placed  to  the 
Palmerstonian  credit.  A  youth  named  Mather 
was  in  the  way  of  Austrian  soldiers  marching 
through  a  Florentine  street.  The  officer  in  com- 
mand, striking  him  with  his  sword,  cut  his  head 
open.  The  father  complained  to  the  English 
Ambassador,  Sir  Henry  Bulwer,  demanding  as 
damages  £5,000.     Eventually  he  received  £250. 

The  actual  result  did  not  seem  m'uch  to  affect 
the  popular  verdict  on  the  Palmerstonian  action. 
It  was  a  self-assertive  era  in  our  nineteenth-cen- 
tury record.  Palmerston  personified  the  temper 
of  the  time,  and  received  and  retained  the  gallery 
plaudits  not  only  in  spite  of  but  sometimes  in 
consequence  of  his  mistakes  ;  for  a  mistake  it 
certainly  was,  as  the  Brazilian  Minister,  Macedo, 
complained  in  1852  to  an  acquaintance  of  mine, 
"  not  to  give  Brazil  a  chance  of  showing  the 
sincerity  of  her  objections  to  the  slave  trade 
before  compelling  us  to  submit  to  the  right  of 
search   in  our   own  waters.'* 

My  last  sight  of  this  overwhelmingly  popular 
type  of  the  aristocratic,  autocratic  diplomatist 
was  some  day  during  the  first  half  of  October 
1865,  as  he  mounted  his  horse  in  Downing 
Street.  A  few  days  later  he  had  gone.  In 
Disraeli's  novel   "  Endymion  "   Lord  Rowhamp- 

198 


Palmerstoniana 

ton,  Palmerston  drawn  from  the  life,  dies  at  his 
desk.  The  immediate  cause  of  the  real  Palmer- 
ston's  death  was  a  walk  on  the  terrace  at  Brocket 
without  his  hat.  To  the  remonstrance  ujx)n  this 
indiscretion  he  said,  '*  Oh,  it's  only  what  bathers 
call  'taking  a  header.'"  He  kept  his  habitual 
courtesy  and  cheerfulness  to  the  last,  and  when, 
a  few  minutes  before  dissolution.  Lady  Palmer- 
ston came  into  the  room,  he  kissed  his  hand  to 
her.  His  last  words  were  those  of  one  at  work 
on  a  treaty  :  '*  That's  article  ninety -eight ;  now 
go  on  to  the  next." 


199 


CHAPTER    V 

"ARCADES   AMBO" 

Palmerston  on  the  Turf — The  Palmerstonian  pattern  in  men  and 
dress  exemplified  by  W.  McCullagh  Torrens  in  his  appear- 
ance, manner,   stories   (the   whisky  and  the  Cabinet),  and 
by  Charles  Skirrow — Other  early  and  mid-nineteenth- century 
types   of  both  sexes — The  third   Sir   Robert  Peel  on  his 
father's  death — Horse-dealer  Quartermaine  brings  the  three- 
hundred-guinea  Premier  round  to  Whitehall  Gardens — Sir 
Robert's   refusal  of  the  high  figure  followed   by  the   fatal 
accident   on    Constitution   Hill — Outside  and  inside  Pem- 
broke Lodge — Sir  Henry  Calcraft's  introduction  to  a  famous 
veteran  in  Church  and  State — Lord  John  with  his  wind- 
gauge  under  the  veranda  and  amid  his  historical  souvenirs 
and  illustrious  visitors  in  his  drawing-room — Thomas  Carlyle 
on  misrepresentation  of  himself  and  on  his  own  amiability — 
How  the  first  Lord  Lytton  "being  dead,  yet  speaketh" — 
Lord  John  for  the  Jews — What  Carlyle  thought  of  Peel,  of 
a  certain  Anglican  service  on  a  Scotland-bound  steamer,  and 
of  the  Church  of  England — H.  Calcraft's  and  E.  F.  Leveson- 
Gower's  review  of  Grevillian  and  EUician  verdicts — Johnny's 
"calculated  indiscretions"  and  "dirty  tricks" — Mr.   E.  F. 
Leveson-Gower  and  Lord  John — "You  will  know  what   to 
say.      Good-morning  ! " — Charles   Greville,  George    Payne, 
and  "  the  rigour  of  the  game  " — Palmerston   and    Russell 
compared — Specimens   of  Palmerstonian  wit  and   wisdom, 
and   of    Russellian   aphoristic   invective   in    duel   with   Sir 
F.  Burdett — How  Whigs  are  born  not  made,  and  Lord  John 
290 


"  Arcades  Ambo  " 

preaches  "  rest  and  thankfulness  " — Canning  on  the  "  mud- 
bespattered  Whigs  " — Cobbett's  vernacular  about  the  Whigs 
in  general,  and  Lord  John  in  particular,  as  the  "shoy-hoys" 
of  politics — When  statesmen  fall  out,  body-servants  come  by 
their  own — What  Sir  John  Graham's  valet  found  in  his 
master's  pocket,  and  what  he  did  with  it — "  The  Widow's 
Mite  " :  how  Lord  John  came  to  be  so  called — Lord  John 
Russell  and  Earl  Granville  compare  notes  about  preparatory 
schools  and  agree  in  thinking  mutton  fat  detestable — 
Adolphe  Thiers  on  Viscount  Palmerston  and  Lord  John 
Russell — The  Palmerstonian  laissez-aller  in  private  as  well 
as  public  life,  especially  in  connection  with  household 
bills — Something  savours  more  of  the  "  hawk  "  than  of  the 
"merry-man" — How  Palmerston  and  Russell  made  friends 
in  1858,  and  "hated  each  other  more  than  ever" — The 
secret  truth  about  Palmerston's  dismissal  from  the  Foreign 
Office  in  1852 — The  real  cause  not  so  much  his  "scores  off 
his  own  bat "  as  his  patronage  of  revolutionary  movements 
abroad  and  the  English  Court's  preference  for  Legitimacy  in 
general  and  Austrian  Absolutism  in  particular — Palmerston's 
"tit-for-tat"  with  John  Russell— The  Militia  Bill  brings  in 
the  Conservatives  under  Lord  Derby  and  puts  Malmesbury 
in  Palmerston's  place  in  the  Foreign  Office — Malmesbury  on 
himself  for  peace,  retrenchment,  and  reform — His  Foreign 
Office  economies — His  short  way  with  the  Foreign  Service 
messengers. 


In  his  international  sympathies,  as  in  a  certain 
amount  of  his  statesmanship,  Palmerston  typified 
the  reaction  towards  democracy  from  the  indiffer- 
ence to  racial  connections  or  aspirations  of  the 
Vienna  Congress  in  181  5,  and  from  Metternich*s 
system  of  police  despotism  at  home,  together 
with  contempt  for  popular,  even  national,  move^ 

2Q\ 


Great  Victorians 

ments  abroad,  that  led  to  the  revolution  of  1848. 
With  these  public  tendencies  he  combined,  in  the 
whole  habit  of  his  private  life,  his  associations 
and  pursuits,  the  patrician  tastes  of  the  period 
to  which  he  belonged,  coupled  with  an  easy 
acceptance  of  the  social  fusion  at  whose  begin- 
nings he  had  assisted,  and  whose  progress  he  did 
much  to  encourage.  In  his  fondness  for  the 
Turf,  in  his  intercourse  with  his  trainer,  John 
Day,  and  all  his  stable  connection,  he  not  only 
reflected  the  social  temper  of  his  own  time,  but 
in  his  own  person  presaged  the  ruling  passions, 
in  their  most  familiar  aspects,  as  well  as  in  all 
their  levelling  influence,  of  the  era  following  his 
own.  Like  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  many 
others,  filling  a  large  place  in  the  public  eye  and 
mind,  he  became  a  pattern  as  well  as  a  type. 
George  IV,  after  consultation  with  his  tailor, 
may  have  brought  in  the  frock-coat.  Palmer- 
ston  was  the  first  to  make  it  a  compiulsory  article 
of  costume.  Black  and  white  check  trousers 
when  worn  by  Palmerston  became  universal .  'He 
laid  them  aside,  and  striped  nether  garments  were 
soon  the  only  wear.  With  the  Palmerstonian 
dress  there  came  in,  for  gentlemen  of  mature 
age,  whether  of  St.  Stephen's,  at  Newmarket, 
or  in  the  City,  the  Palmerstonian  blend  of  genial 
dignity   and   smiling   ease   of  personal   bearing. 

2p? 


"  Arcades  Ambo  '* 

There  lived,  till  quite  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century^  two  perfect  and  miscellaneously  known 
specimens  of  the  Palmerstonian  school .  One  was 
W.  McCullagh  Torrens,  who  died  April  26,  1894, 
from  a  hansom  cab  accident.  This  clever  and 
kindly  Irishman  had  long  shared  the  social  life 
of  St.  Stephen's  with  Palmerston,  and  had  so 
caught  his  phrases  that  the  terse  sayings  often 
attributed  to  Palmerston  himself  were  really  those 
of  Torrens .  Such  was  the  description  of  so  m^ny 
Irish  reforms  as  doomed  to  failure  because  they 
attempted  to  make  sovereign  proprietors  out  of 
pauper  peasants.  So,  too,  though  Palmerston 
may  have  thought  it  of  his  particular  friend. 
Sir  Patrick  O'Brien^  it  was  not  he,  but  Torrens, 
who  said,  **  Eh,  Pat,  if  it  weren't  for  the  whisky 
we'd  have  you  in  the  Cabinet."  The  self-posses- 
sion and  dignity  of  the  disciple  were  at  least 
equal  to  those  of  the  master ;  and  during  thej 
latter  half  of  his  life,  after  his  second  marriage,^ 
Torrens,  seated  at  the  top  of  his  dinner-table  in 
Eaton  Square,  recalled  to  miany  of  his  guests  the 

Amphitryon  of  Cambridge  House. 

» 

The    second    of    the    two    nineteenth -century 

hosts    visibly   cast   in  the   Palmerstonian   mould 

was   Charles  Skirrow,   by  profession  a  solicitor, 

subsequently  a  taxing  master  in  the  High  Court 

of  Justice,   the   kindest  and  smoothest   of  men, 

203 


Great  Victorians 

with  a  face  which  was  the  picture  of  discreet 
conviviahty,  a  remarkably  sound  taste  in  wine, 
and  in  his  earher  days  more  or  less  mixed  up, 
socially  as  well  as  professionally,  with  Palmer - 
ston  and  the  first  Lord  Westbury.  Among  the 
other  figures,  varying  in  magnitude,  of  the 
Palmerstonian  era  to  be  met  with  during  an  after- 
noon walk  frotn'  Pall  Mall  to  Westminster  were 
the  two  inseparables.  Lord  Adolphus  (Dolly) 
Fitzclarence  with  Sir  George  Wombwell,  wild- 
eyed,  thin,  fiercely  gesticulating  Nineveh  Layard, 
and  Sibthorp  and  Chisholm  Anstey,  the  two 
men  who  were  to  Palmerston  at  Westminster 
what  Rowcliffe  was  to  him  at  Tiverton.  But 
most  observed  of  all  observers  would,  of  course, 
have  been  bell -hatted,  white -waistcoated,  wide- 
trousered  Sir  Robert  Peel,  destined  to  meet  his 
death  through  two  galloping  young  ladies,  who 
caused  his  horse  to  shy,  a  rib  breaking  and 
piercing  the  lung.^  Going  imto  the  Park  one 
would   have   seen   two    or   three   ladies,   for   the 

^  The  third  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the  minister's  son,  once  showed 
me,  outside  his  house  in  Whitehall  Gardens,  the  exact  spot  at 
which  Quartermaine,  the  best-known  dealer  of  those  days,  stationed 
the  horse  he  had  brought  round  for  his  father's  inspection.  "  His 
name,"  said  the  dealer,  "  is  The  Premier."  "And  his  price  ?  "  said 
Sir  Robert.  "Three  hundred  guineas."  "More  than  I  care  to 
give,"  was  the  rejoinder.  The  animal  actually  purchased,  costing 
^bout  that  sum,  stumbled,  threw,  and  killed  its  rider, 

304 


^^  Arcades  Ambo  '* 

most  part  well  mounted  and  well  equipaged. 
Anonyma  in  Rotten  Row  was  then  the  subject  of 
innumerable  letters  in  The  Times.  Agnes  Wil- 
loughby,  to  be  followed  some  years  later  by 
Cora  Pearl,  queened  it  among  the  "  pretty  horse- 
breakers,"  but  was  a  poor  substitute  for  the 
typical  Palmerstonian  demi-monde  notoriety,  Lola 
Montez,  the  bold-faced,  black -haired  lady  whose 
sole  beauty  lay  in  her  brilliantly  flashing  eyes. 
There  would  be  the  Countess  de  Landsfeld,  as 
she  had  been  created  by  the  old  King  of  Bavaria, 
who,  to  avoid  expulsion  from  his  capital,  had 
made  her  escape  in  man's  dress.  From  Switzer- 
land she  came  to  this  country,  started  a  little 
establishment  in  Half-Moon  Street,  came  across 
an  officer  in  the  Life  Guards  who  shared  her 
fondness  for  dogs,  married  him  bigamously, 
retired  across  the  Atlantic,  and  died  in  San 
Erancisco. 

As  representative  of  his  age,  though  from  a 
very  different  point  of  view,  as  Palmerston  was 
the  rival  with  whom  he  had  so  many  skirmishes, 
heavy  or  light,  and  who  outlived  him  by  nearly 
thirteen  years— Lord  John  Russell.  On  a  fine 
afternoon  in  the  summer  of  1875  ^  was  walking 
through  the  great  Park,  and  was  just  leaving 
it  by  the  Richmond  Gate,  when   I  caught  sight 

of  a  little  old  gentleman  on  a  spacious  wicker 

205 


Great  Victorians 

chair,  or  couch,  under  the  veranda  of  the  Crown 
villa  known  as  Pembroke  Lodge,  occupied 
for  some  thirty  years  by  Earl  Russell.  At  the 
moment  he  was  apparently  occupied  with  ad- 
justing a  mechanical  contrivance  of  a  sort  I  had 
never  seen  before.  While  thus  looking  I  was 
accosted  by  my  acquaintance,  then  at  the  Board 
of  Trade,  Sir  Henry  Calcraft,  the  scion  of  an 
old  Whig  family,  who  knew  everything  about 
everybody,  and  not  to  know  whom  was  indeed 
to  be  unknown  oneself.  **  Watching,"  he  said, 
**  old  Johnny's  diversions  with  his  wind-gauge  ? 
If  you  like,  I  will  take  you  in  and  introduce  you 
to  him."  Five  minutes  afterwards  I  formed  a 
humble  unit  in  the  most  illustrious  comipany  which 
I  had  then  ever  been  privileged  to  enter.  The 
host  was  talking  with  great  animation  by  turns 
to  J.  A.  Eroude  and  W.  E.  H'.  Lecky,  the  his- 
torians, to  Sir  Joseph  Hooker,  the  director  of 
Kew  Gardens,  and  to  Thomas  Carlyle,  the 
prophet   and  sage  of  Chelsea. 

I  had  seen  the  veteran  for  the  first  time  a  few 
months  earlier  in  the  House  of  Lords  during  a 
debate  on  Irish  coercion  or  the  Endowed  Schools 
Act,  I  cannot  remember  which.  In  parliament- 
ary utterance  what  the  "  Ha-ha  !  "  was  to  Pal- 
merston  the  "  Hem-hem  !  "  was  at  his  latest  to 
Lord   John.      His   speech  was   little  more  than 

206 


"  Arcades  Ambo 


9> 


dumb -show,  for  only  an  occasional  word  mounted 
to  the  gallery  where  I  had  my  seat.  Weariness 
of  the  situation  and  the  weakness  of  age  then 
gave  the  observer  no  chance  of  seeing,  as  Bulwer- 
Lytton  in  "New  Timon  '*  has  it  :— 

.  .  .  our  statesmen  when  the  steam  is  on, 

And  languid  Johnny  glows  to  glorious  John  ! 

When  Hampden's  thought,  by  Falkland's  muses  dress'd, 

Lights  the  pale  cheek  and  swells  the  generous  breast  ; 

When  the  pent  heat  expands  the  quickening  soul, 

And  foremost  in  the  race  the  wheels  of  genius  roll ! 

The  contrast  between  the  old  Whig  as  I  had 
thus  caught  a  glimpse  of  him  in  the  **  gilded 
chamber  "  and  as  I  now  saw  and,  for  the  first 
time,  heard  him  in  the  home  lif)e  he  loved,  enabled 
one  to  realize  the  transformation  described  by 
the  poet.  His  conversation  was  not  monologue  ; 
at  the  same  time,  it  had  little  of  the  give-and-take 
belonging  to  casual  talk.  He  spoke  seldom, 
and  then  chiefly  to  Carlyle  and  Hooker.  When, 
however,  he  opened  his  lips,  the  words  coming 
from  them  were  compact  of  long  experience,  full 
of  wisdom,  and  memorable  for  their  point.  The 
announcement  of  Mr.  Charles  Villiers,  to  whom 
as  to  a  family  friend  I  had  been  known  all  my 
life,  secured  mfe  the  notice  of  the  old  Earl.  He 
had  seen  me  looking  at  the  bric-a-brac  on  the 
velvet-covered    slab    just    above    the    chimney- 

207 


Great  Victorians 

piece.  I  beard  the  new-comer  say  to  him  of  me, 
"  Bickham  Escott's  nephew."  "  I  recollect  your 
uncle/'  said  to  me  the  master  of  Pembroke  Lodge, 
"  and  here  "—pointing  to  one  of  the  medals— 
*'  is  a  memorial  of  a  cause  in  which  I  had  his 
co-operation,  though  in  his  time  nothing  came 
of  it."  The  souvenir  in  question  bore  the  in- 
scription :— 

Have  we  not  one  Father? 
Hath  not  one  God  created  us? 

Lord  John  RusselFs  constituency  for  the  twenty 
years  before  his  peerage  was  the  City  of  London. 
The  movement  for  the  complete  enfranchisement 
of  Jews  began  in  1835;  it  was  only  crowned 
with  success  in  1858,  when,  on  the  26th  of  July, 
Baron  Rothschild  took  his  seat  for  the  City. 
By  that  time  most  of  those  who  had  laboured 
with  him  had  gone,  and  my  own  relative,  to 
whom  he  referred,  had  died  in  1853.  As  for 
my  fellow-visitors  on  this  occasion  to  Pembroke 
Lodge,  one  could  not  but  notice  a  certain  resem- 
blance to  the  host  in  Lecky's  incisively  senten- 
tious talk,  gentle  and  subdued  manner,  though 
stopping  short  of  the  frigidity  traditionally  attri- 
buted to  Lord  John.  The  warm  atmosphere  of 
a  country  house  was  necessary,  they  said,  to  thaw 

Lord   John's   iciness,   and  to   bring  him  out  as 

208 


"  Arcades  Ambo 


5> 


he  was  known  by  those  who  saw  him  at  his 
best  when  staying  with  Lord  Lansdowne  at 
**  Bowoo'd  "  or  Lord  Stanhope  at  "  Chevening.'* 
Concerning  Froude,  whom  I  had  met  before, 
and  with  whom  I  became  intimate  afterwards, 
something  will  be  said  later.  As  regards  the 
author  of  **  Sartor  Resartus,"  I  saw  him  at  Pem- 
broke Lodge  for  the  first  and  last  time.  Before 
he  left  he  led  me  to  a  corner  of  the  room,  or  of 
the  veranda  outside,  and  gave  me  a  few  words 
entirely  to  myself.  **  You  may  hear  it  said  of 
me  that  I  am  cross-grained  and  disagreeable. 
Dinna  believe  it.  Only  let  me  have  my  own  way 
exactly  in  everything,  with  all  about  me  precisely 
what  I  wish,  and  a  sunnier  or  pileasanter  creature 
does  not  live.  And  now,"  he  said,  "that  I  have 
heard  your  name,  let  me  tell  you  I  met  some  one 
bearing  it,  maybe  your  father,  on  board  the 
steamer  by  which  some  time  ago  I  was  voyaging 
to  Scotland.  It  was  Sunday ;  we  had  a  little 
religious  service  on  deck.  He  read  from  the 
Church  of  England  Prayer  Book,  delivered  a 
short  and  sensible  discourse,  leaving  me,  like 
others,  with  the  feeling  that  the  English  Estab- 
lishment is  the  best  thing  of  its  kind  out." 
With  regard  to  Lord  John  himself.  Sir  Henry 
Calcraft,  reared  from  infancy  in  Whig  aristocratic 
circles,  almost  congratulated  me  on  my  recep- 

209  o 


Great  Victorians 

tion  beneath  the  roof  to  which  he  had  introduced 
me.  "  The  truth/'  he  went  on  to  explain,  "  is  that 
Lord  John's  manner,  frigid  and  forbidding  as  at 
first  it  seems,  is  rather  that  of  his  period  than  of 
the  man  himself.  In  comparison  with  Sir  Robert 
Peel  he  is  cheeriness  and  geniality  personified. 
No  one,"  he  went  on,  *'  could  have  hit  him  off 
better  than  a  man  to  whom  I  will  find  an  oppor- 
tunity of  introducing  you  one  day,  and  whose 
memoirs  a  few  years  hence  wc  shall  all;,  I  suppose, 
be  reading."  This  was  an  allusion  to  Charles 
Greville,  then  Clerk  of  the  Council,  a  great  figure 
at  Newmarket  and  on  every  racecourse.  His 
phrase,  so  pleasing  to  Calcraft,  describing  the 
great  Sir  Robert,  was  "  a  cold  feeler  and  a 
cautious  stepper."  "  Russell,"  resumed  Calcraft, 
**  had  always  an  attached  personal  connection. 
Peel,  on  the  other  hand,  was  always  without 
friends." 

Before  we  left  Pembroke  Lodge  Carlyle  put 
the  truth  to  toe  pretty  well  when  he  said,  *'  Peel 
can  bribe,  coerce,  palaver,  can  win  votes  but 
not  hearts."  Some  years  later  I  repeated  this 
estimate  to  one  of  Peel's  literary  trustees^  Charles 
Stuart  Parker,  who,  when  a  Fellow  of  Univer- 
sity, had  examined  me  in  the  final  schools,  and 
to  Peel's  eldest  son.  Sir  Robert  the  third.  They 
both  circumstantially  denied  its  truth.     Nor,  as 

2  ID 


"  Arcades  Ambo  " 

I  knew  from  their  conversation,  could  any  public 
man  have  personally  endeared  to  himself  in  a 
warmer  degree  not  only  Parker,  but  Cardwell, 
the  most  famous  and  staunohest  of  Peelites,  who 
lived  well  into  my  time.  "  My  father's  manner," 
said  to  me  the  third  Sir  Robert,  *'  was  not  remark- 
able for  abandon,  but  he  felt  very  deeply  and 
quickly.  I  have  seen  the  account  of  a  railway 
accident  cause  him  to  turn  deadly  pale,  and  even 
go  off  in  a  faint.  What  really,"  continued  the 
great  man's  son,  "  stung  my  father  in  the  attacks 
on  him  for  his  grand  apostasy  A^as  the  ignoring 
of  his  words  four  years  earlier,  1842,  that  on 
the  general  principles  of  Free  Trade  there  existed 
no  great  difference  in  opinion.  'All,'  he  said, 
'  agree  in  the  broad  rule  that  we  shall  buy  in  the 
cheapest  market  and  sell  in  the  dearest.'  "  There 
were  then  three  different  methods  of  dealing  with 
the  doome^d  Corn  Laws .  One  was  the  fixed  duty 
of  the  Whigs,  the  other  Peel's  own  original  sliding 
scale,  and  last,  the  total  abolition  of  the  Re- 
pealers. The  Irish  famine  determined  Peel's 
course.  In  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  words, 
*'  Rotten   potatoes   did   it  all  :    they  put  Peel  in 

his  d d  fright."     As  a  fact,  and  as  some  of 

those  I  had  met  at  Pembroke  Lodge  reminded 
one,  some  weight  must  be  given  to  Lord  John's 
**  Edinburgh  Letter,"  denouncing  the  Com  Laws 

211 


Great  Victorians 

as  the  blight  of  commerce,  the  bane  of  agri- 
culture, the  source  of  bitter  divisions  among 
classes,  the  cause  of  penury,  fever,  mortality, 
and  crim^  among  the  people. 

Outbursts  of  this  sort  sometimes  staggered  his 
party  colleagues.  They  had  the  effect,  however, 
of  fixing  the  national  attention  upon  their  author. 
They  made  him,  indeed,  always  the  talk,  and 
sometimes  in  the  City,  as  well  as  in  the  country, 
the  idol  of  the  hour.  Johnny's  '*  calculated  indis- 
cretions," as  they  seemed  to  some,  or  *'  dirty 
tricks,"  as,  without  any  real  resentment,  they 
were  loosely  called  by  others,  were  the  most  in- 
teresting of  political  pheiiomena,  periodically  re- 
current during  the  first  half  of  the  Victorian  age. 
Afterwards  they  were  to  some  degree,  if  uncon- 
sciously, imitated  by  the  Lord  Salisbury  of  our 
time  in  the  "  blaze  of  apology  "  which  now  and 
then  lit  up  his  place,  or  the  sensational  candour 
with  which,  when  meditating  a  fresh  stroke.  Lord 
RandoJp'h  Churchill  took  the  multitude  into  his 
confidence . 

Lord  John,  indeed,  not  only  never  advertised 
after  the  Churchillian  fashion,  but  was  apt  to  be 
severe  about  any  approach  to  doing  it  in  his 
partisans  or  opponents.  He  did,  however,  realize 
the  need  in  a  democratic  age  of  occasionally  em- 
phasizing his  views  for  the  benefit  of  himself,  if 

212 


*'  Arcades  Ambo 


5> 


not  of  his  party.  All  personally  acquainted  with 
Palmerston  and  Russell  felt  that  the  two  resem- 
bled each  other  in  there  being  no  pose  about 
either.  In  the  autumn  session  of  1854,  Mr.  E.  E. 
Leveson-Gower,  Lord  Granville's  brother,  was 
to  second  the  Address  in  the  Commons.  He 
therefore  had  to  see  the  Prime  Minister,  Lord 
John,  on  the  subject.  On  the  Premier  therefore 
he  called,  to  receive  from  him,  in  the  way  of  in- 
struction, nothing  more  than  these  words  :  **  I  am 
glad  you  are  going  to  second  the  Address.  You 
will  know  what  to  say.     Good -morning." 

The  reserve  of  Russell  was  as  much  a  part  of 
his  nature  as  the  colloquial  urbanity  of  Palmer- 
ston. In  conversation  with  Palmerston  during 
their  earlier  days.  Napoleon  III  once  attributed 
his  habitual  taciturnity  to  the  influence  on  him  of 
long  connection  with  the  grave,  silent  men  of  the 
English  turf.  These  associations  never  had  the 
same  effect  on  the  evergreen  minister.  Like  all 
those  of  his  time  and  set,  Charles  Greville  and 
George  Payne,  as  much  as  others  who  were  never 
on  a  racecourse  in  their  lives,  he  took  his  amuse- 
ments in  earnest,  and  might  have  been  bracketed 
with  Charles  Lamb's  Sarah  Battle  in  upholding 
"the  rigour  of  the  game."  In  the  very  year,  I 
believe,  of  his  death,  he  left  **  Broadlands  "  after  a 
very  early  breakfast  on  a  ride  to  Littleton  stables 

213 


Great  Victorians 

to  see  his  horses  gallop,  and  only  returned  home 
in  time  for  a  late  luncheon .  A  little  earHer  in  the 
same  twelvemonth  he  had  trotted  down  on  a 
*'  speech  day "  to  Harrow  from  his  house  in 
Piccadilly,  a  distance  of  more  than  ten  miles, 
done  well  within  the  hour.  Sir  Henry  Calcraft, 
to  whose  good  offices,  as  I  have  said,  I  owe  the 
material  for  a  comparison  between  the  two  men, 
had  a  rare  experience  of  the  public  service  in 
nearly  all  its  departments  and  knew  thoroughly 
the  official  qualities  of  its  chief  directors.  "At 
the  Home  Office,  the  Foreign  Office,  and  wher- 
ever else  they  may  have  served,"  said  this 
remarkably  competent  critic,  "  Palmerston  and 
Russell  established  a  tradition  which  will  make 
itself  felt  to  the  end  of  time.  In  all  matters  of 
detail,  such  as  the  principles  of  caligraphy,  the 
docketing  of  papers,  and  very  much  else,  they 
created  precedents  and  set  examples  which  have 
operated  as  widely  and  effectively  as  if  they  had 
been  the  reforms  recommended  by  a  Parliamen- 
tary Commission." 

Palmerston  and  Russell  were  both  credited  by 
the  contemporaries  who  knew  them  best  with 
contributing  to  the  political  phrase-book  words 
or  expressions  which  it  was  predicted  would  long 
survive  their  authors.  Palmerston's  *' mankind, 
taking  them  altogether,  are  very  good  fellows, 

214 


"  Arcades  Ambo 


» 


but  rather  conceited/'  may  be  matched  by 
Russell's  stinging  rebuke  to  Sir  Francis  Burdett 
when  that  former  champion  of  popular  rights  had 
ratted  to  the  Tories.  "The  cant  of  patriotism 
may  be  as  disgusting  as  the  right  honourable 
baronet  says .  I  will  point  out,  however,  that  what 
may  be  no  less  disgusting  is  the  recant  of  patriot- 
ism." *'  Rest  and  be  thankful "  as  a  protest 
against  present  agitation  for  a  further  suffrage 
enlargement  at  once  passed  into  the  currency 
of  the  language  and  exposed  the  maker  of  the 
expression  to  an  amount  of  Radical  indignation 
which  it  is  a  testimony  to  Russell's  greatness  that 
he  so  soon  and  so  completely  lived  down.  Can- 
ning, Liberal  in  all  things  except  Reform,  had 
already  described  *'  the  mud -bespattered  Whigs, 
with  laurels  in  their  hats  and  brickbats  at  their 
heels,  bedaubed  with  ribbons  and  rubbish,  and 
only  rescued  from  their  overpowering  popularity 
by  a  detachment  of  His  Majesty's  Horse  Guards." 
Cobbett  now  coined  one  of  his  effective  nick- 
names, which,  sticking  for  a  little  time  like  a 
burr,  was  shaken  off  completely  by  Russell's 
moral  force.  "Lord  John,"  he  said,  "and  the 
rest  of  the  Whigs  are  like  '  shoy-hoys '  [  the 
Hampshire  word  for  scarecrows]  put  up  to 
frighten  thievish  sparrows,  looking  very  formid- 
able at  a  distance,   but   soon   discovered   to   be 

215 


Great  Victorians 

perfectly  harmless.  The  borough-mongers  care 
no  more  for  such  men  than  the  sparrow  in  the 
garden  of  a  neighbour  of  mine  at  Botley,  which 
sat  hammering  out  the  peas  on  the  crown  of  the 
hat  of  a  sham  man  that  had  been  stuck  up  to 
frighten  the  sparrows  away." 

Historians  and  biographers  may  have  been 
chary  in  giving  instances  of  it,  but  the  attribute 
that,  in  the  same  degree  as  the  premeditated  dis- 
plays of  fitful  impetuosity,  interested  the  contem- 
porary public  was  Lord  John's  essentially  British 
and  typically  patrician  serenity  of  bearing  and 
temper.  With  admirable  felicity  and  point  Bulwer- 
Lytton  interpreted  the  popular  appreciation  of 
this  trait  in  the  "New  Timon,"  1846.  This 
incident  is  more  noteworthy  still  because  it 
marked  one  of  Russell's  earliest  departures  from 
Whiggism  towards  Radicalism. 

Next,  cool,  and  all  unconscious  of  reproach, 
Comes  the  calm  "Johnny  who  upset  the  coach." 

The  coach  was  the  1834  Grey  Ministry,  the  occa- 
sion the  debate  on  the  superfluous  funds  of  the 
Irish  Church.  The  whole  subject  had  long  caused 
much  difference  of  opinion  in  the  Whig  Cabinet. 
Up  to  now  the  English  language  had  failed  to 
provide  Stanley,  then  a  Whig  minister,  the  future 
fourteenth  Earl  of  Derby  and  Tory  chief,  with 

216 


"  Arcades  Ambo  " 

words  to  express  his  loathing  of  O'Connell.  In 
the  discussion  that  took  place  towards  the  end  of 
May  he  changed  his  tone  and  spoke  quite 
pleasantly  of  the  Irish  dictator.  Lord  John, 
though  quite  consistently  with  everything  he  had 
said  and  thought  on  the  subject,  A^ent  further  by 
declaring  the  revenues  of  the  Irish  Church  to 
exceed  the  sum  necessary  for  the  moral  and 
religious  instruction  of  its  members.  Suppressed 
sensation  all  round,  amid  which  Stanley  scribbled 
on  a  piece  of  paper  the  words,  *'  Johnny's  upset 
the  coach,"  and  passed  it  to  Sir  James  Graham. 
A  little  later  the  words  had  their  fulfilment  in  the 
resignations  of  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  Lord 
Ripon,  as  well  as  Graham  and  Stanley  them- 
selves. Of  those  last  two  Graham  put  the  paper 
into  his  pocket.  His  servant,  a  very  smart  fellow, 
found  it  there  the  same  night,  and  at  once  took 
it  to  Printing  House  Square.  The  Times  next 
morning  intimated  the  fatal  ending  of  the 
Cabinet  crisis.  The  Whig  place-men  and  place- 
hunters,  the  tapers  and  tadpoles  of  *'  Coningsby," 
forming  the  entire  tribe  of  "  twelve -hundred -a - 
yearers  "  in  real  life,  never  forgave  the  indiscre- 
tion which  hastened  their  doom  and  quickly  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  Tory  Government  under 
Peel  as  Premier  and  Wellington  as  Foreign 
Secretary.      Deep    and    long,    if    not    loud,    at 

217 


Great  Victorians 

Brooks's  and  among  the  Cavendish  section  of 
Whiggism  were  the  curses  heaped  on  '*  the  con- 
ceited puppy "  who  by  blurting  out  the  fatal 
secret  had  let  in  the  Tories, 

Of  all  the  public  men  surviving  to  our  times, 
Lord  Granville  showed  the  quickest  and  truest 
insight  into  Lord  John's  idiosyncrasies.  The  two 
men  diflfered  widely  in  tastes,  temper,  habits,  and 
interests  of  mind  and  life,  but  when  together  by 
themselves  and  in  a  congenial  frame  would  cap 
each  other's  stories  of  their  earliest  days,  especially 
of  their  tribulations  at  preparatory  schools  and 
their  devices  to  avoid  eating  the  mutton  fat  which 
it  meant  a  punishment  to  leave  on  their  plates. ^ 

Russell's  betrothal  and  marriage  to  the  lady 
who  had  been  the  wife  of  Lord  Ribblesdale 
combined  with  shortness  of  stature  to  secure  him 
the  sobriquet  of  *'  the  Widow's  Mite."  His  non- 
chalance on  suddenly  trying  conjunctures  secured 
him  the  admiration  even  of  those  smarting  from 
the  party  havoc  worked  by  his  recent  words. 
Only  a  few  days  later  in  the  May  that  had  seen 

^  The  conversational  intimacy  of  the  two  finds  innumerable 
illustrations  in  Lord  Fitzmaurice's  encyclopaedic  biography,  at 
once  a  treasure-house  of  nineteenth-century  international  politics, 
alike  in  their  domestic  and  foreign  aspect,  and  of  society  in 
the  same  epoch  sketched  from  behind  the  scenes.  Beyond  my 
obligation  to  that  work  I  owe  much  also  to  Lord  Granville's 
brother,  Mr.  E.  F.  Leveson-Gower,  as  well  as  others,  like  him, 
unhappily  no  longer  here. 

2l8 


"  Arcades  Ambo  ^^ 

him  '*  upset  the  coach,"  he  was  walking  with 
Samuel  Rogers  across  St.  James's  Park.  The 
pair  met  full  face  the  trio  whose  resignation  Lord 
John  had  caused.  "  I,"  Rogers  told  Kinglake, 
"  stopped  to  speak  to  them.  Johnny  walked  on, 
but  framed  his  features  into  an  expression  imply- 
ing that  he  thought  less  of  them  than  of  the  dirt 
that  soiled  his  boots."  "  Palmerston,"  said 
Thiers,  who  took  the  correct  measure  of  both, 
"  was  guided  par  la  caract^re,  non  par  la  raison." 
In  private  as  well  as  public  laissez-aller  had 
become  his  motto.  He  never  troubled  about 
tradesmen's  little  accounts,  from  no  idea  of  keep- 
ing them  out  of  their  money,  but  from  mere 
carelessness.  The  frequent  consequence  was  a 
lawyer's  letter.  One  of  these,  more  peremptory 
in  tone  than  usual,  had  the  signature,  *'  Hawk  and 
Merriman."  *'  Really,"  said  Palmerston,  tossing 
it  to  one  of  his  secretaries,  *'  they  should  be  told 
that  this  savours  more  of  the  hawk  than  of  the 
merry -man."  His  political  associates  received 
much  the  same  treatment.  As  deeply  interested 
in  politics  as  Melbourne,  he  often  showed  as 
little  good  faith  as  Russell.  None  ever  knew 
exactly  where  they  were  with  him.  Until  he 
became  supreme  over  his  own  party  nobody  could 
be  quite  sure  whether  he  was  going  to  nobble 

the  Tories  or  to  square  the  Radicals. 

219 


Great  Victorians 

All  this  was  as  well  known  to-  his  official  col- 
leagues as  to  the  critics  behind  the  scenes,  such 
as  Greville.  In  Melbourne's  second  administra- 
tion (1835-41),  Clarendon  and  Palmerston  were 
respectively  Lord  Privy  Seal  and  Foreign  Secre- 
tary. *'  It  is  impossible,"  said  Melbourne  to 
Clarendon  one  day  at  Windsor,  *'  that  this 
Government  can  go  on ;  Palmierston  in  com- 
mvinication    with    the     Tories— Palmerston     and 

Ashley "     Then  he  stopped.     Clarendon  took 

up  his  parable.  *'  What  !  You  think  Palmerston 
and  the  Tories  will  come  together?  "  Melbourne 
nodded  assent ;  and  when  asked,  *'  Which  will 
come  to  the  other?  "  chuckled,  grunted  *'  I  don't 
know  !  "  laughed,  and  rubbed  his  hands.  As  to 
the  Tories,  the  dozen  attempts  to  unite  Palmerston 
with  Derby  only  failed  because  Palmerston  would 
not  give  up  Free  Trade  and  Dei^by  from  1846 
led  the  Protectionists. 

The  Melbournian  dispensation  just  referred  to 
required,  no  doubt,  Melbourne's  tact  and  humour 
to  keep  it  together  during  the  six  years  of  its  life. 
Its  internal  dissensions  and  recriminations  were 
always  dooming  it  to  death.  During  the  quiet 
intervals  the  Prime  Minister  went  to  sleep.  The 
Cabinet's  brains  and  mainsprings  were  Russell 
and  Palmerston,  both  immeasurably  above  the 
Prime  Minister,  with  infinitely  more  force  of 
character  and  knowledge  of  affairs.    Russell  had 

220 


"  Arcades  Ambo  " 

inherited,  not  formed,  his  opinions.  Representing 
the  Whig  tradition,  he  believed  in  the  infalli- 
bility of  its  exponents  or  oracles,  from  Sidney  to 
Somers,  from  Somers  to  Fox  and  to  himself. 
It  was  part  of  the  providential  order  that  the 
Great  Revolution  families  should  govern  the 
country  in  unbroken  succession  throughout  the 
centuries.  The  difficulties  into  v^hich  he  got  the 
Whigs  had  the  same  cause  as  those  created  by 
Palmerston  for  his  partisans  and  himself— the 
practice  inveterate  in  each  of  playing  for  his  own 
hand.  "The  worst  of  Johnny,"  said  "Bear" 
Ellice,  "  is  that  he  is  always  springing  mines  under 
our  feet  or  bidding  for  popularity  over  our  heads . 
One  never  goes  to  bed  at  night  without  knowing 
whether  we  shall  not  wake  up  to  be  confronted 
in  the  morning  by  a  Stroud  Letter,  an  Edinburgh 
Letter,  or  a  Durham  Letter,  or  that  when  the 
House  opens  he  may  not  denounce  his  friends  as 
he  did  denounce  them  on  the  conduct  of  the 
Crimean  War."  Palmerston,  on  the  other  hand, 
entirely  ignored  the  notion  of  subordination  or 
community  of  responsibility. 

During  the  Melboumian  era,  in  the  election 
of  a  Speaker,  Russell,  by  his  moderation,  averted 
a  collision  between  the  two  sides  of  the  House^ 
certain,  had  Palmerston  been  left  to  himself,  to 
have  caused  much  inconvenience.  The  final 
reconciliation  between  Palmerston  and  Russell  in 

221 


Great  Victorians 

1858  was  no  drawing-room  incident,  as  it  has 
been  described,  but  was  managed  entirely  by 
"  Bear  "  Ellice  and  took  place  at  his  house.  After 
shaking  hands,  they  may,  as  Lady  Tankerville 
said,  have  hated  each  other  more  than  ever.  But 
at  the  time  Ellice's  account  of  their  estrange- 
ment differed  a  good  deal  from  the  usual  story, 
and  may  be  given  now  as  I  had  it  from  .Lord 
Houghton .  After  the  Kossuth  incident  of  1 8  5  i 
the  Radicals  dined  Palmerston  at  the  Reform 
Club,  and  democratic  deputations  from  Islington 
and  Finsbury  presented  him  with  congratulatory 
addresses.  The  Court  being  strongly  pro- 
Austrian,  he  at  once  got  into  trouble,  and  only 
a  plausible  plea  for  turning  him  out  was  wanted. 
To  have  found  that  in  his  Hungarian  sympathies 
would  have  been  to  cemtot  his  alliance  with  the 
Radicals.  As  a  fact,  the  unpardonable  offence 
of  Palmerston  in  the  Royal  eyes,  making  it  sure 
that  on  the  first  opportunity  he  would  be  sent  to 
the  *'  right-about,"  was  neither  his  prematurely 
expressed  partiality  for  the  Second  Empire,  nor 
the  failure  to  show  the  Queen,  after  she  had  first 
seen  and  signed  them,  his  alterations  in  foreign 
dispatches.  The  true  cause  of  his  disgrace  was 
purely  dynastic.  The  revolutionary  year  1848 
fixed  the  Court  sympathies  very  strongly  on 
Austria  against  Hungary  and  against  Italy. 
Those  feelings  had  grown  in  intensity  rather  than 

222 


I 


"  Arcades  Ambo  " 

diminished  three  years  later.  On  the  occasion 
of  Louis  Kossuth's  visit,  the  Austrian  Ambassador 
in  London  received  rather  rough  treatment  from 
Barclay  and  Perkins's  draymen.  This  was  the 
moment  that  Palmerston,  then  Foreign  Secretary, 
chose  for  accepting  the  Reform  Club  invitation  to 
dine,  as  the  courtiers  put  it,  with  the  rabble — men 
not  ten  of  whom  any  decent  man  knew  even  by 
sight.  The  Queen  and  the  Prince  Consort  were 
furious,  and  the  more  so  because  they  knew  that 
on  the  issue  which  had  chiefly  provoked  their 
wrath  they  could  not  get  rid  of  the  minister. 
The  Whigs,  therefore,  were  to  go  with  the  least 
possible  delay.  With  a  strangeness  as  of  comic 
opera,  Palmerston  himself  hastened  the  fulfilment 
of  the  Royal  desire.  Lord  John's  former  Foreign 
I  Secretary  himself  upset  his  former  chief  by  the 
Militia  Bill,  February  1852.  So  lightly,  however, 
did  his  Liberalism  sit  on  '*  Pam  "  that  he  was 
perfectly  ready  to  take  the  Foreign  Oflice  under 
Russell's  successor.  Lord  Dei'by.  "The  Rupert 
of  Debate,"  however,  had  other  views.  According 
to  **  The  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister,"  he  acci- 
dentally met  the  author  of  that  work  and  asked 
him  to  suggest  some  one  for  the  Foreign  Office. 
The  third  Earl  of  Malmesbury  naturally  sug- 
gested himself.  Meanwhile  the  new  Prime 
Minister  had  been  angling  for  Lord  Stratford 
de  Redcliffe  with  the  Foreigu  Portfolio  as  bait ; 

223 


Great  Victorians 

he  did  not  even  get  a  bite.  The  day  after  the 
meeting  with  his  brother  peer  just  related,  Lord 
Derby  actually  put  into  the  Foreign  Office  the 
self -proposed  Malmesbury,  of  whom  his  political 
opponents  used  unkindly  to  say  that  he  was  never 
less  in  place  than  when  in  place. 

Burke  had  something  to  say  about  the  "  gentle 
historians  "  who  judge  of  every  man's  capacity 
for  office  by  the  number  of  offices  he  has  filled  ; 
and  the  more  offices,  the  more  ability.    The  Earl 
of   Malmesbury  belonged   in   his   time   to   three 
Cabinets.       In    bearing,    manner,    and    a    never 
absent  sense  of  his  own  importance,  he  resembled 
the  Lord  Sydney  of  his  own  period.     His  father 
had  taken  the  leading  part  in  the  abortive  nego- 
tiations with  Napoleon,  first  to  prevent,  and  then 
to  stop,  the  great  war.     The  son  must  have  in- 
herited something  of  the  paternal  qualifications  ; 
for  Lord  Derby  really  considered  him  one  of  the 
best  Secretaries  of  State  with  whom  he  had  ever 
served.      As    "  Tamarang "    he    was    favourably 
known  in  every  European   capital.   Chancellery, 
and  Court,  and  had  no  serious  enemies  except  the 
Orleanist  faction,  socially  so  active  and  politically 
so  powerful  in  the  English  polite  world  during 
the  years  that   opened  the   second   half  of   the 
Victorian  age.     Thoroughly  ruse  as  he  showed 
himself,  he  owed  more  than  has  ever  yet  been 
stated   to   our   then   French   Ambassador,    Lord 

224 


"  Arcades  Ambo  " 

Cowley,  who  not  only  helped  him  privately  iti  his 
work  but  used  his  influence  to  prevent  many  in- 
convenient questions  being  put  to  the  Foreign 
Secretary  in  Parliament. 

This  third  Earl  of  Malmesbury  was  something 
more  than  a  man  who  thought  a  good  deal  of  his 
family  antecedents,  his  title,  and  himself.  In  his 
private  as  well  as  official  life  and  doings  he 
typified  the  prudential  virtues  characteristic  of  his 
caste  in  an  age  when  so  many  of  its  members 
began  to  supplement,  if  not  create,  their  incomes 
by  *'  going  into  the  City." 

My  own  very  slight  acquaintance  with  him 
came  about  during  the  earliest  eighties  in  the 
following  fashion.  His  old  precis-writer  and, 
I  think,  private  secretary  as  well  as  Hampshire 
neighbour,  a  very  old-standing  friend  of  mine. 
Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff,  asked  me  whether  I 
could  recommend  him  a  trustworthy  and  practised 
writer  who  would  share  with  him  the  burden  of 
preparing  his  memoirs  for  the  Press.  I  at  once 
named  Mr.  J.  M.  Tuohy,  then,  as  now,  a  dis- 
tinguished member  of  the  Dublin  Freeman's 
London  staff.  There  were  some  preliminaries,  it 
seemed,  on  which  Lord  Malmesbury  was  desirous 
of  speaking  to  me.  Nothing  could  be  more  frank 
than  the  Earl's  conversation  or  more  considerate 
than  his  ideas .  After  some  talk  on  the  immediate 
business,  he  looked  at  me  through  his  glasses  and 

225  p 


Great  Victorians 

rather  thought  he  saw  in  me  a  family  resemblance 
to  a  relative  of  mine  already  mentioned  in  these 
pages  as  the  victim  of  the  Greek  brigands  at 
Marathon.  The  Earl  then  had  something  to  say 
on  general  subjects,  such  as  the  influence  of  the 
Press,  the  effect  of  the  House  of  Commons  on 
foreign  policy,  of  a  scheme  prepared  by  himself 
and  Sir  Henry  Wolff  for  replacing  war  by  arbi- 
tration. *'  Whatever,"  he  continued,  "  one's  party 
or  position,  one  must  adapt  oneself  to  one's  times  ; 
and  I  have  always  worked  for  peace,  retrenchment, 
and  reform.  Among  the  leakages  I  have  stopped 
are  the  foreign  service  messengers.  Very  soon 
after  first  coming  into  office  I  reduced  them  front 
a  little  less  than  a  score  to  fifteen  in  number.  I 
also  reduced  the  length  and  cost  of  their  journeys. 
The  salary  used  to  be  eight  hundred  or  nine  hun- 
dred a  year,  not  including  perquisites  ;  and  some 
messengers,  with  mileage  and  other  allowances, 
brought  it  up  to  over  a  thousand  pounds.  Lord 
John  Russell,  who  followed  me  at  the  Foreign 
Office,  first  in  1852  and  again  in  1858,  went 
farther  and  fixed  the  messengers'  emoluments  at 
four  hundred  a  year,  with  travelling  expenses  and 
a  pound  a  day  for  pocket-money.  Since  then 
there  has  been  more  cutting  down,  and  in  these 
days  of  electricity  and  steam  locomotion  the  office 
by  and  by  may  cease  to  exist." 

226 


CHAPTER  VI 

FROM  SIR  ROBERT  THE  THIRD  TO  LORD  DERBY 
THE  FOURTEENTH 

A  Piccadilly  party  in  the  eighties — Enter  the  third  Sir  Robert 
Peel — How  "  Magnifico  Pomposo"  lays  down  the  law,  backs 
his  opinion,  is  proved  wrong  by  the  books,  and  pays  up  like 
a  man — A  modern  Zimri — From  father  to  son — Sir  Robert 
on  his  seniors,  contemporaries,  and  men  and  things  in  general 
— Henry  Calcraft's  promise  of  introducing  the  writer  to  "the 
lodger  in  Bruton  Street"  fulfilled — How  Lady  Granville  ran 
the  gauntlet  of  Mr.  Greville's  "horrid"  friends— The  third 
Sir  Robert's  strange  adventures  and  imposing  appearance — 
His  views  about  the  fourteenth  Earl  of  Derby — Nineteenth- 
century  types  of  politics  and  play  for  the  Upper  Ten — Legisla- 
tion or  thimblerigging  ? — Political  country  houses  in  the  West 
and  their  company — S.  T.  Kekewich  to  be  lent  to  the  Liberals 
to  make  them  respectable — Sir  Stafford  Northcote  in  the 
bosom  of  his  family  and  neighbours — Sir  Stafford's  chestnuts 
— As  literate  as  Thackeray  could  wish,  though  himself  pre- 
ferring Dickens  to  Thackeray — At  home  with  Shakespeare 
and  the  musical  glasses — On  the  practical  usefulness  of  the 
study  of  Greek — Sides  with  Archbishop  Temple  against  Sir 
M.  E.  Grant-Duff — How  Priam  in  St.  James's  Palace  "  waked 
and  looked  on  drawing  his  curtains  by  night " — The  South 
Devon  "  knight  of  the  shire,"  squire  of  "  Peamore,"  and  "  the 
Rupert  of  Debate"  at  Eton  and  afterwards — The  former 
introduces  the  writer  to  the  latter — The  fourteenth  Lord 
Derby  at  William  IV's  coronation  :  "  You  have  the  gout ; 
must  not  kneel,  my  lord  ! "    "I  really  must  insist  on  kneeling, 

227 


Great  Victorians 

Sir  " — The  writer's  call  at  Knowsley — How  the  Earl  preferred 
the  gout  to  the  sherry — The  Countess  prefers  the  canal  barge 
to  the  railway  train,  and  the  Earl  the  towing-path  to  either — 
"One  thing  at  a  time" — Newmarket  leaves  no  time  for 
Imperial  or  home  politics — Receives  a  wigging  from  the 
Queen  and  anticipates  being  "  beaten  horse  and  foot " — The 
"  ruler  of  the  Queen's  Navee  " — Chaffed  by  his  chief  about 
his  visit  to  Spithead — The  ministerial  fish-dinner — Lord 
Derby  proposes  "Sir  John  Pakington  and  the  wooden 
spoons  of  old  England " — The  Earl  makes  merry  about 
Lord  John's  "  very  bad  company "  with  Lord  and  I^ady 
Malmesbury — How  for  putting  on  wrong  dress  he  was  nearly 
turned  out  by  the  porter— The  anecdote  about  the  coal- 
scuttle— Succeeds  Duke  of  Wellington  as  Oxford  Chancellor 
in  1853 — Begins  with  Latin  oratory — Ten  years  later  brings 
down  gallery  and  boxes  by  his  Ciceronian  welcome  to  the 
Princess  of  Wales — "  Ipsa  adest " — How  and  where  in  deal- 
ing with  the  Duke  of  Argyll  Derby  learnt  the  wisdom  of  the 
"  amuses  him  and  don't  hurt  me  "  policy. 

The  last  chapter  introduced  a  personal  link 
between  politics  and  society  in  the  earlier  and 
later  half  of  the  Victorian  era.  This  was  the 
third  Sir  Robert  Peel,  of  whom,  during  and  after 
the  seventies  till  his  death  in  1895,  ^  saw  a  great 
deal,  always  with  extreme  profit  and  pleasure  to 
myself  from  his  extraordinarily  varied  experi- 
ences and  generally,  but  not  invariably,  accurate 
memory.  I  make  this  reserve  because  it  was  a 
momentary  slip  in  his  recollection  of  the  past 
which  first  brought  me  to  his  notice.  About  the 
time  of  the  then  Laureate's  peerage  (January 
1884),   I  happened  to  be  one  of  a  little  party 

228 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

dining  at  Baron  Eerdinand  Rothschild's  house 
in  Piccadilly.  Some  one  ventured  on  the  obser- 
vation that  Lord  Tennyson  would  be  the  first 
peer  created  for  literary  eminence  alone  during 
recent  times.  Sir  Robert  waved  with  his  hand 
rather  than  articulated  dissent.  **  How  about 
Macaulay  ?  "  I  then  ventured  to  hint  that  the  his- 
torian, like  the  novelist  Bulwer-Lytton,  had  long 
been  well  known  in  Parliament,  and  a  Cabinet 
Minister  before  receiving  his  title.  *'  What !  " 
exclaimed  Sir  Robert,  in  his  most  magnificently 
crushing  tone  and  manner,  "  you  the  editor  of 
the  Fortnightly  Review,  and  give  yourself  away 
like  this  !  "  **  Indeed,"  I  meekly  persisted,  "  un- 
less the  history  books  are  wrong,  Macaulay  in 
Melbourne's  1840  Ministry  certainly  had  the  War 
Office."  *'  Why,"  continued  Sir  Robert,  to  com- 
plete my  annihilation,  "  there  was  no  Secretary 
of  State  at  the  War  Office  till  after  the  Crimea  in 
1857."  *'  Pardon  me.  Sir  Robert,  I  did  not  say 
there  was,  but  only  that  as  Secretary-at-War 
Macaulay  was  one  of  Melbourne's  Ministers  ;  and 
if  I  have  deceived  you  and  myself,  our  host's 
library  will  enable  you  to  confirm  your  correction 
and  secure  you  my  apologies."  But  Baron 
Ferdinand  had  been  beforehand  with  us  both. 
Having  left  the  room  for  a  moment,  he  re- 
appeared   with    that    admirable    little    manual, 

229 


Great  Victorians 

Ransome  and  Acland's  *'  Political  History/* 
open  at  page  i86,  showing  the  composition  of 
the  Whig  Government  as  reconstituted  after  the 
"Bedchamber  Plot's"  failure.  "However,  I 
acknowledge,"  said  Peel,  "  I  had  overlooked  the 
Cabinet,  which  was  the  real  matter,  and  that  you 
were  right." 

No  parliamentary  personage  of  his  time  below 
the  first  rank  was  better  known  to  the  multitude 
in  town  or  country  than  the  third  Sir  Robert. 
Wherever  he  might  be  staying  there  took  place 
no  public  gathering,  religious  or  secular,  into 
which  he  did  not  find  his  way.  Once  there  he 
always  received,  and  seldom  refused,  an  invita- 
tion to  mount  the  platform.  With  some  sug- 
gestion in  his  ruddy  face,  heavy,  well -waxed 
moustache,  dress,  and  general  manner  of  the 
master  of  a  circus  ring,  he  possessed  what  Mr. 
Gladstone  called  the  finest  voice  in  the  St. 
Stephen's  of  his  time.  As  versatile  in  his  choice 
of  subjects  as  he  was  voluble  in  dealing  with 
them,  he  adopted  generally  a  homely  style, 
packed  with  varied  information,  and  lightened 
with  amusing  illustrations  and  personal  reminis- 
cences. Disraeli,  during  Sir  Robert  Peel's  earlier 
days  at  St.  Stephen's,  never  missed  a  chance  of 
visiting  on  him  a  dislike  of  his  father's  memory^ 
sometimes,  so  I  have  been  told  by  those  present 

230 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

at  the  time,  with  some  discredit  to  himself.  That 
happened  during  a  Foreign  Policy  debate  of 
the  early  sixties.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  as  what  was 
then  called  Liberal-Conservative  Member  for 
Tamworth,  spoke  of  seeing  Mr.  Disraeli  smile 
at  some  of  his  remarks.  Disraeli,  who,  by  the 
by,  never  smiled,  called  him  to  order,  and  even 
went  so  far  as  to  retort  the  charge  on  his 
censor.  As  it  was.  Sir  Robert  did  not  come  off 
second  best  in  the  little  encounter.  So  long  as 
he  had  a  seat  in  the  House  he  filled  the  assembly 
directly  he  rose  to  speak,  and  never  moved  it 
to  such  roars  of  laughter  as  during  his  last  session, 
when  joking  about  the  German  patronymic  of 
Queen  Victoria's  sculptor-in -ordinary.  Sir  Edgar 
Boehm.  "  Pooh  !  "  magnificently  sniffed  Sir 
Robert,  "the  very  name  smells."  In  the  same 
vein  some  years  before,  more  graphically  than 
Thackeray  in  any  of  his  lectures,  he  described 
George  I  in  his  "  harem,"  blubbering  *'  curagao." 
The  Court  took  great  offence.  The  then  Prince 
of  Wales  let  it  be  known  to  Sir  Robert  that 
he  thought  it  a  mistake.  Sir  Robert  himself 
took  an  opportunity  of  explaining  that  he  had 
spoken  in  a  Pickwickian  sense,  and  the  matter 
ended. 

Stiff  in  opinions,  always  in  the  wrong, 
Was  everything  by  starts  and  nothing  long. 
231 


Great  Victorians 

Cast  in  such  a  mould,  the  third  Sir  Robert  was 
predestined  to  be  as  often  in  hot  water  of  every 
kind  as  Zimri  himself.  Nor  did  many  weeks 
together  pass  without  once  hearing  of  Turf  Club 
episodes  in  which  "  Sir  Peel  "  figured,  and  which 
in  more  belligerent  days  might  have  had  serious 
results.  The  minister's  eldest  son  and  name- 
sake during  the  period  of  my  close  acquaintance 
with  him  lived  a  great  deal  at  Brighton  at  the 
New  Club.  Here  he  had  his  bed-sitting- 
room,  finely  fitted  up  and  furnished,  on  the  first 
floor ;  and  here,  downstairs,  he  was  often  as 
visible  to  passengers  on  the  King's  Road  outside 
as  to  members  within,  the  ornament  and  oracle 
of  the  place,  typically  linking  in  his  own  person, 
as  well  as  by  his  own  grand  manner,  the  London - 
super-Mare  of  his  own  time  with  the  exclusive 
associations  of  the  Pavilion— its  titled  and  un- 
titled demi-reps  of  the  days  when  the  Pavilion 
first  rose  to  the  honour  and  glory  of  the  fourth 
George. 

There  were  then  still  living  those  who  could 
recall  as  well  as  this  chief  of  South  Coast  nota- 
bilities the  brilliant  auspices  under  which  he 
began,  and  the  national  position  which  it  had 
seemed  his  fate  to  fill.  The  second  Duke  of 
Wellington  had  celebrated  the  day  on  which  the 

son  of  his  father's  old  colleague  took  a  wife  by 

232 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

a  splendid  banquet  in  the  great  gallery  of  Apsley 
House.  By  this  time  the  bridegroom  had  given 
up  diplomacy,  and  for  six  years  had  held  as 
Liberal -Conservative  his  father's  old  seat  of  Tam- 
worth.  Some  twenty  years  later,  during  our 
Brighton  walks  and  talks,  he  had  much  quite 
fresh  to  say  about  all  this,  and  about  the  men  of 
his  father's  timfe  and  of  his  own. 

Some  years  before  the  date  now  looked  back 
upon  Sir  Henry  Calcraft  had  fulfilled  his  promise 
of  presenting  me  to  Charles  Greville,  the  diarist, 
known  indifferently  as  **  Punch  "  Greville,  from 
the  formation  of  his  nose  and  back,  and  as  the 
"  Cruncher."  His  most  popular  sobriquet,  how- 
ever, was  the  '*  Lodger,"  because  he  occupied 
some  rooms  on  an  upper  floor  at  Lord  Granville's, 
1 6  Bruton  Street— a  house  I  was  afterwards  to 
know  very  well.  His  visitors  were  often  the 
racing  men  who  caused  Lady  Granville  to  say 
that  she  dreaded  going  upstairs  because  she  was 
sure  to  meet  one  of  Mr.  Greville's  "horrid" 
friends.  The  only  other  caller  present  when 
Calcraft  took  me  in  was  that  polished  and  agree- 
able old  Turfite,  George  Payne,  whose  conver- 
sation with  Greville  my  arrival  scarcely 
interrupted. 

*'  To  the  Greville  school,"  said  to  me  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  *'  politics  and  racing  seemed  things  which 

233 


Great  Victorians 

Providence  had  joined  and  which  man  ought  not 
to  put  asunder."  Both  were  the  proper  occu- 
pations of  a  leisured,  aristocratic,  and  wealthy 
class.  Parliament,  in  fact,  seemed  as  much  a 
department  of  sport  as  the  Turf.  "  Thus  my 
grandfather,  a  high  Tory,  one  of  Lord  Liver- 
pool's strongest  supporters,  told  his  chief  that 
he  would  no  longer  put  his  money  on  the  Tories 
but  go  over  to  the  Whigs  if  his  son,  my  father, 
were  not  immediately  provided  with  a  high 
political  office."  That  was  how  Sir  Robert  be- 
came Irish  Secretary  in  1809.  As  for  the  third 
Sir  Robert,  the  last  constituency  he  contested 
was  that  in  which  he  passed  so  much  of  his 
time.  As  Gladstonian  Home  Ruler  he  stood  for 
Brighton  in  1889,  and  concentrated  on  himself 
the  bitterest  personal  and  political  opposition. 
The  Primrose  League  then  formed  the  chief  local 
power  ;  its  ladies  worked  day  and  night  against 
him^  and  ensured  his  defeat.  In  vain  he  told 
the  electors  that  if  they  wanted  humour  in  their 
representative  he  had  more  fun  in  his  little  finger 
than  Mr.  Gerald  Loder  in  his  whole  body.  The 
cult  of  Lord  Beaconsfield's  "  favourite  flower  " 
had  robbed  him  of  his  only  chance.  Retaliating 
rather  warmly  on  the  "  witches  "  of  the  Primrose 
League^  he  was  represented  by  the  reporters  as 
using  another  word  which  rhymes  with  that,  but 

234 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

begins  with  a  *'  b^  The  proprieties  of  the 
**  Queen  of  Watering-places  "  were  scandalized, 
and  one  heard  nothing  more  of  the  vanquished 
baronet  till  one  read  of  his  death. 

His  career  connected  the  very  latest  ninetenth- 
century  politics  with  those  of  the  regime  when 
English  democracy  was  only  a  phrase,  and  the 
fourteenth  Earl  of  Derby  had  yet  to  take  the  leap 
in  the  dark  which  established  it.  The  late  Sir 
Robert  reflected  in  his  estimate  of  that  nobleman 
the  contemporary  ideas  concerning  him.  They 
corresponded  exactly  with  what  I  had  already 
heard  from  Lord  Derby's  own  Cabinet  colleagues, 
such  as  the  fourth  Lord  Carnarvon.  "During 
the  year  in  which  he  became  Prime  Minister  for 
the  first  time,  1852,  I  saw  him  at  Newmarket," 
said  to  me  Sir  Robert,  "  surrounded  by  a  crowd 
of  betting  men  and  blackguards  of  every  descrip- 
tion, in  the  midst  of  them,  roaring  with  laughter, 
chaffing  and  joking  with  everybody,  and  betting 
Lord  Glasgow  that  he  would  not  sneeze  before  a 
given  moment  after  taking  a  pinch  of  snuff. 
This,"  he  continued,  "  is  exactly  what  might  have 
been  expected  by  one  who  heard,  as  I  did,  when 
a  boy  of  fourteen,  from  under  the  gallery,  the 
famous  *  Thimblerigging'  Speech.' i     His  science 

^  The   Whig   Irish   Tithe   Bill   of   1834  had   produced   from 
O'Connell  an  amendment  for  making  good  the  loss  to  the  Church 

235 


Great  Victorians 

of  parliamentary  defence,  in  Macaulay's  words, 
no  doubt  resembled  an  instinct ;  but/'  insisted 
Sir  Robert,  "  he  was  a  first-rate  debater  because 
he  was  also  a  consummate  actor.  The  slight 
wave  of  his  hand,  the  tone  of  his  voice,  and  the 
spark  of  his  deep-set,  eagle  eye,  brought  before 
one  the  whole  scene— the  trickster  in  corduroys 
at  the  table,  the  mingled  cajolery  and  menace 
of  his  voice,  the  open-mouthed  perplexity  of  the 
bamboozled  yokel,  and  the  derisive  shouts  of 
those  who  had  wit  enough  not  to  become 
victims." 

'*  They  ought  to  get  the  Conservatives  to  lend 
them  Kekewich,  that  they  might  look  a  little  more 
respectable."  This  is  what  one  used  to  hear  at 
the  Carlton  whenever  the  Liberals  were  in 
office  any  time  between  the  later  fifties  and  the 
earlier  seventies.     The  then  Member  for  South 

out  of  several  different  funds.  "  I  have  never,"  said  Stanley, 
"  witnessed  any  proposal  like  this  which  the  Government  favours 
except  among  a  class  of  persons  not  generally  received  into 
Society.  Their  skill  is  shown  by  the  dexterous  shifting  of  a  pea 
on  a  small  deal  table,  placing  it  first  under  one  thimble,  then 
under  another,  and  getting  any  flat  among  the  bystanders  to 
bet  under  which  thimble  it  is.  Even  so  O'Connell  has  got  the 
pocket  of  the  State,  the  pocket  of  the  landlord,  the  pocket  of  the 
tenant,  the  Perpetuity  Fund,  and  the  Consolidated  Fund  under 
his  various  thimbles.  When  the  thimbles  are  taken  up  the 
property  will  be  found  to  have  disappeared,  and  the  dupes 
will  be  laughed  at." 

236 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

Devon  thus  referred  to  was  indeed  a  magnificent 
specimen  of  a  highly  bred  **  knight  of  the  shire  ** 
of  the  old  school.  As  my  father's  first  cousin 
he  was  good  enough  during  my  parents'  absence 
abroad,  from  time  to  time,  to  make  his  house, 
'*  Peamore,"  near  Exeter,  my  second  home. 
There  I  was  duly  presented,  not  only  to  local 
celebrities,  social  and  p>olitical,  without  number, 
but  to  the  two  Conservative  chiefs  of  the  time, 
Sir  Stafford  Northcote  and  "  the  Rupert  of 
Debate "  himself.  Sir  Stafford  had  been  my 
father's  contemporary  at  Eton  and  Balliol.  Their 
friendship  continued  through  their  working 
lives.  Nor  can  I  recall  any  truer  or  kindlier 
type  of  the  political  squire  met  with  in  my 
early  Devonshire  days  than  the  master  of 
'*  Pynes."  My  first  impression  of  him  is  that 
of  a  much  gentler  mannered  West  Country 
sportsman  than  any  other  member  of  that 
class  I  had  ever  seen,  superficially  distin- 
guished from  most  gentlemen  of  his  sort  in  that 
when  shooting  he  wore  brown  polished  gaiters 
rather  than  the  high  Wellington  boots  then  much 
affected.  At  Balliol  Northcote,  together  with 
Dean  Stanley,  Goulburn,  Jowett,  and  Lake,  had 
been  scholars  when  my  father  was  exhibitioner. 
**  Our  positions  there  ought,"  he  pleasantly  said, 
"  to  have  been  reversed,  and  your  father  to  have 

^17 


Great  Victorians 

had  my  scholarship.  But,"  he  went  on  to  say, 
*'  the  conditions  under  which  your  father  got  a 
Third  Class  made  it,  as  we  all  thought,  equal  to 
a  First."  ' 

Of  the  future  Lord  Iddesleigh's  conversation  I 
can  clearly,  and  I  am  sure  correctly,  recall  that 
it  was  racy  of  the  Devonian  soil,  abounding  with 
local  anecdotes,  told  in  the  same  Devonshire  idiom 
and  occasionally  accent,  shared  by  him  with 
another  West  Country  personage,  also  often  seen 
by  me  at  this  period,  the  future  Primate,  then 
Bishop  of  Exeter.  Many  years  later  my  kindest 
and  mbst  instructive  of  friends,  Sir  M.  E.  Grant- 
Duff,  had  taken  Dr.  Temple  to  task  for  saying 
that  Greek  was  educationally  valuable  precisely 
because  it  was  a  *'  dead  "  language.  It  brought 
boys  into  an  entirely  new  order  of  ideas.  Dr. 
Temple  contended,  and  an  atmosphere  intellec- 
tually stimulating  precisely  in  proportion  as  it 
was  strange.  "  And,"  said  Sir  Stafford,  "  Temple 
is  perfectly  right.  The  *  dead  '  languages  are 
chiefly  useful  as  the  keys  of  another  world  from 
that  we  live  in."  In  the  Exeter  district  the  Squire 
of  "  Pynes  "  was  famous  above  all  things  for  his 

^  Ill-health  had  prevented  my  relative  from  reading  for  anything 
more  than  a  pass.  But  his  earliest  papers  impressed  the  ex- 
aminers so  favourably  that  on  the  second  or  third  day  he  received 
from  them  a  written  request  to  go  into  the  Honours  School. 

236 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

stories,  **  wise  saws  and  modem  instances/'  culled 
from  different  points  of  the  entire  country 
between  the  Exe  and  the  Tamar  or  Plymouth 
Sound  and  Tresco  Bay.  Of  such  anecdotes  the 
charm  evaporates  in  writing ;  and  those  whom 
they  would  specially  interest  know  them  already. 
The  great  attraction  of  Sir  Stafford's  talk  came 
from  its  being,  like  himself,  "  thoroughly  literate," 
to  use  Thackeray's  favourite  epithet.  He  was 
just  old  enough  to  have  held  his  own  in  a  discus- 
sion on  niceties  of  scholarship  with  Lord  Welles- 
ley,  ranked  by  the  Headmaster  of  Eton  above 
Porson  himself  as  Grecian  and  Latinist.  His 
quotations  from  modern  not  less  than  from 
classic  authors  were  always  felicitous  and  ready, 
as  the  following  instance  will  show. 

During  the  early  eighties  I  wrote  nightly  a 
Standard  leader  at  the  office  ;  it  always  aimed 
at  embodying  some  special  information  from  the 
party  leaders.  At  the  desire  of  my  friend  and 
editor,  W.  H.  Mudford,  whose  shrewd  good  sense 
and  brains  re-created  the  paper,  I  called  one 
night  on  Sir  Stafford  at  his  St.  James's  Place 
house.  It  was  very  late,  and  he  could  not  be 
disturbed.  I  persevered,  and  was  shown  into  his 
study,  whither  presently,  wrapped  in  a  dressing- 
gown,  he  descended,  looking,  as  I  thought,  a 
little  tired,   but  not  at  all  out  of  temper.      No 

239 


Great  Victorians 

doubt  he  noticed  the  intentness  of  my  gaze.  In 
a  moment  there  came  from  him  Goldsmith's 
couplet  in  the  "  Haunch  of  Venison  "  :— 

"With  a  visage  so  sad,  and  so  pale  with  affright 
Waked  Priam  in  drawing  his  curtains  by  night. 

You  have,"  he  added,  "  shortened  my  beauty 
sleep;  but  I  will  try  to  tell  you  what  I  can."  ^ 
The  fourteenth  Earl  of  Derby  had  been  in  the 
same  division  at  Eton  as  my  kinsman  Trehawke 
Kekewich,  whom  he  constantly  addressed  in  Latin 
verses  begun  at  school,  and  resumed  many  years 
afterwards,  as  Arboris  accipiter .  In  face  and 
bearing  the  two  men  were  not  unlike.  The  Earl 
had  not  his  schoolfellow's  tall,  handsome  figure, 
but  both  carried  beyond  the  threshold  of  old  age 
the  same  prolific  crop  of  tousled  and  shaggy 
hair,  the  same  hard,  aquiline  features,  and  the 
same  blunt,  masterful  manner.  The  resemblance 
had  first  been  noticed  in  their  school -days  ;  it 
became  more,  rather  than  less,  conspicuous  as 
the  years  went  on.  They  called  each  other 
Rupert    and   Trehawke.      My   kinship  with   the 

^  I  had  been  less  fortunate  the  same  evening,  a  Wednesday, 
in  my  nocturnal  invasion  of  Mr.  Chamberlain  and  Sir  Charles 
Dilke,  then  constituting  the  party  of  two.  Both  were  out.  "A 
committee,"  said  Mudford,  "  of  the  old  women  of  the  House  of 
Commons  ought  to  inquire  how  and  why  the  two  right  honourable 
Members  are  away  so  late  from  their  homes." 

240 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

latter  alone  secured  me  the  notice  of  **  the  Earl," 
as  he  used,  par  excellence,  to  be  known,  and 
permission  to  call  at  **  Knowsley "  if  I  ever 
chanced  to  be  in  the  neighbourhood,  as  several 
years  later  I  was.  Ushered  into  his  presence  in 
the  billiard-room,  I  found  him  alternately  prac- 
tising strokes  with  his  cue  and  at  a  little  table 
close  by  writing  letters  or  dispatches  in  his  beau- 
tifully delicate  and  clear  Italian  hand.  He  must 
then  have  been  completing  his  threescore  years 
and  ten,  but  was  physically  in  better  case  than 
when,  between  two  and  three  decades  earlier, 
he  took  the  Privy  Councillor's  oath  to  William  IV. 
The  King  then  said,  "  I  beg  you  won't  kneel. 
Lord  Derby.  You  have  the  gout."  "Your 
Majesty  must  allow  me,"  *'  I  won't  hear  of  it. 
I  heard  my  father  say  you  were  the  best  Lord- 
Lieutenant  in  England,  and  so  you  are  now." 
•*  He  takes,"  I  was  told  by  one  of  his  private 
secretaries,  **  enough  exercise  to  wear  out  two 
or  three  ordinary  men  ;  only  last  week  he  walked 
some  part  of  the  way  from  London  to  Liver •» 
pool."  The  explanation  of  that  feat  was,  it  seems, 
this.  Lady  Derby's  health  rendered  the  move- 
ment of  a  railway  train  unpleasant,  if  not  in- 
jurious. A  barge,  therefore,  was  fitted  up  for 
her  conveyance  by  canal ;  at  the  side  of  this,  on 
the  towing-path,  her  husband  took  long  spells 

241  Q 


Great  Victorians 

of  walking,  periodically  entering  her  ladyship's 
floating  boudoir  for  meals  or  rest.  About  the 
time  I  visited  "  Knowsley  "  a  certain  very  char- 
acteristic story  about  its  master  was  going  the 
rounds.  An  advertising  wine  merchant  had  sent 
him  some  very  particular  dry  sherry  as  a  panacea 
for  gout,  to  receive  in  a  day  or  two  this  acknow- 
ledgment :  "I  am  desired  by  Lord  Derby  to 
say  that  he  has  tried  your  sherry,  and  prefers  the 
gout."  "  Did  this,"  I  ventured  to  ask  the  private 
secretary,  "really  happen?"  "Most  certainly," 
was  the  reply,  "  it  did,  and  I  ought  to  know,  for 
I  wrote  the  letter." 

A  Whig  by  political  descent,  Lord  Derby  some- 
times surprised  and  inconvenienced  his  colleagues 
by  fidelity  to  the  social  traditions  of  Charles  Fox, 
who  when  abroad  for  a  holiday  never  opened  a 
newspaper  except  to  see  the  betting  at  New- 
market. So  the  Earl,  at  the  height  of  the  diplo- 
matic and  international  crisis  caused  by  the  third 
Napoleon  in  the  April  of  1855,  on  his  return 
from  the  "  First  Spring  Meeting  "  knew  nothing 
about  the  propositions  of  the  Government  at  the 
Vienna  Conference,  though  all  the  newspapers 
scarcely  reported  or  wrote  about  anything  else. 
*'  Let  the  world  slide,"  was  Christopher  Sly's 
motto.     "  One  thing  at  a  time,"  came  from  Lord 

Derby's    lips    more    frequently   than    any   other 

242 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

maxim,  and  expressed  his  resolve  not  to  let  busi- 
ness interfere  with  pleasure.  "  Brains,"  he  would 
also  say,  "  differ  less  in  their  quality  than  in  the 
faculty  of  concentration.'* 

The  Earl  sometimes  resembled  Palmerston  in 
his  disinclination  to  adopt  as  a  matter  of  course 
the  Queen's  revisions  in  his  dispatches.  In  1858 
the  Indian  Viceroy,  Earl  Canning,  was  thought 
by  the  Home  Government  to  have  dealt  too  gently 
with  the  natives  who  had  taken  the  lead  in  the 
Indian  Mutiny.  Lord  Ellenborough,  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  Board  of  Control,  sharply  criticized 
his  policy  in  a  dispa.tch^  considered  by  the  Court 
to  be  much  too  severe.  Whole  paragraphs  to 
which  the  Queen  had  taken  exception  were  left 
in  the  document.  As  Prime  Minister,  Lord 
Derby  was  at  once  summoned  to  the  Palace, 
and  asked  to  explain  his  own  behaviour  in  the 
matter,  as  well  as  that  of  his  lieutenant  in  the 
Commons,  Disraeli.  Meanwhile  the  Ellen- 
borough  dispatch  had  got  into  the  newspapers, 
and  was  about  to  be  debated  in  Parliament. 
Derby  himself  anticipated  being  "  beaten  horse 
and  foot,"  but  added,  "  Bad,  however,  as  our 
cards  are,  there  is  just  a  chance  that  they  may 
contain  the  winning  one."  So,  indeed,  it  proved. 
The  vote  of  censure  failed  in  both  Houses,  be- 
cause, as  "  the  Rupert  of  Debate  "  put  it.  Lord 

243 


Great  Victorians 

Ellenborough's     resignation     made     the     whole 
thing  like  flogging  a  dead  horse. 

Little  checks  of  this  kind  were  taken  very 
lightly  by  the  Earl.  His  India  Bill,  transferring 
after  the  Mutiny  the  government  from  the  Com- 
pany to  the  Crown,  w'ent  through  without  a  hitch. 
The  fish -dinner  closed  the  Session  at  the  end  of 
July.  One  of  the  ministers  then  present,  the 
Colonial  Under-Secretary,  Lord  Carnarvon,  told 
me  that  Lord  Derby  was  in  tearing  spirits,  crack- 
ing jokes  with  each  of  his  colleagues  in  turn^ 
and  especially  with  Sir  John  Pakington,  who 
at  a  Cabinet  a  few  weeks  earlier  had  tempted,  by 
his  late  arrival,  the  Prime  Minister  to  poke  a  little 
fun  at  him.  "  I  have  been,"  Sir  John  excused 
himself,  "  at  Spithead."  "  Then,"  said  the  Earl, 
"  I'll  be  bound  there  never  was  such  a  swell  there 
before."  Sir  John,  it  seems,  was  also  not  quite 
up  to  time  at  the  Greenwich  dinner -table .  As 
the  minister  in  the  Commons  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  fewest  divisions,  he  had  made  good 
his  claim  to  the  same  distinction  as  tradition 
awards  to  the  mathematician  whose  name  closes 
the  list  of  the  Cambridge  Wranglers.  After 
dinner  Lord  Derby,  more  than  ever  delighted 
with  his  own  humorous  vein,  proposed  the  health 
of  "  Sir  John  Pakington  and  the  Wooden  Spoons 

of  Old  England." 

244 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

Bulwer-Lytton  did  but  write  the  exact  truth 
when  he  wrote  in  the  "  New  Timon  "  :— 

Nor  age  nor  gout  his  freshness  can  destroy, 
And  time  still  leaves  all  Eton  in  the  boy. 

A  little  later,  after  a  concert  at  Buckingham' 
Palace,  "  the  Rupert  of  Debate  "  saw  Lord  John 
Russell  talking  with  his  own  Foreign  Secretary, 
Lord  Malmesbury,  and  Lady  Malmesbury. 
"  You  have  got,"  he  said,  "  Lord  John,  into  very 
bad  company ;  and,  while  I  think  about  it,  you 
ought  to  be  wearing  full  dress  and  not  lev6e 
uniform.'*  **  I  know  it,"  came  the  rejoinder, 
"  and  the  porter  wanted  to  turn  me  out."  "  Did 
he?  "  exclaimed  Derby.  "  Thou  canst  not  say,  / 
did  it." 

About  the  same  time  there  went  about  another 
Dei^by  anecdote,  also,  if  I  mistake  not,  told  con- 
cerning Lord  Salisbury.  The  ultra-Whig  Clerk 
of  the  Council,  Charles  Greville,  to  mark  his 
detestation  of  the  Conservatives,  made,  whenever 
he  could,  his  colleague,  William  Bathurst,  attend 
in  his  place.  The  mention  of  this  to  the  Earl 
drew  forth,  "  It  can  signify  nothing  to  me  what 
footman  brings  up  the  coal-scuttle  when  I  ring 
the  belli" 

Two  years  later  than  this,  as  an  Oxford 
undergraduate,   I  renewed  whatever  of  personal 

245 


Great  Victorians 

acquaintance  it  might  be  said  I  had  with  the  great 
man.  At  the  commemoration  of  1863,  as  Chan- 
cellor of  the  University,  he  had  delivered  in  the 
morning  an  address  of  welcome  to  the  Princess 
of  Wales,  who  had  come  there  with  her  husband, 
the  future  Edward  VII.  It  was  composed  in  the 
most  smoothly,  and  in  part  musically,  flowing 
Latin,  full  of  point  in  every  sentence,  with  every 
personal  touch  a  transcript  from  life.  A  very 
graceful  description  of  the  Royal  lady,  then  in  the 
bloom  of  her  early  loveliness,  was  followed  by 
a  sentence  of  two  words,  "  Ipsa  adest,'"  repeated 
more  than  once  with  all  the  melody  of  a  refrain. 
In  the  evening,  at  a  reception  given  by  the  head 
of  my  college,  in  a  recess  of  the  drawing-room 
I  reproduced,  for  the  benefit  of  a  friend  who  had 
not  been  in  the  Sheldohian,  a  good  deal  of  the 
beautiful  oration.  Presently,  looking  rounds 
whom  should  I  see  but  the  orator  himself,  who 
could  not  fail  to  have  heard  a  good  deal  of  what 
I  had  been  saying.  He  was  with  Lord  Carnar- 
von, then  High  Steward  of  the  University.  The 
latter  made  a  movement  as  if  about  to  present 
me  to  the  great  man.  "  Oh,"  said  the  Chan- 
cellor, *'  I  know  Mr.  Escott  already,  from  my 
old  friend  Trehawke  Kekewich."  Then,  turning 
to  me,  he  added,  "  Your  memory  of  what  I  said 

this    morning    seems   uncommonly   good."      Not 

246 


Sir  Robert  the  Third  to  Lord  Derby 

till  many  years  afterwards  did  I  again  hear  that 
voice,  which,  hke  Mr.  Gladstone's,  never  quite 
lost  its  rich  Lancashire  burr.  The  Duke  of 
Argyll  had  delivered  an  elaborately  bitter  tirade 
against  the  then  Leader  of  the  Opposition,  who 
surprised  the  chamber  by  entirely  ignoring  the 
attack.  "  If,"  he  said  before  the  debate  closed, 
"  your  lordships  wish  to  know  why  I  do  not  return 
the  noble  Duke's  invective,  I  will  give  my  reason 
in  a  little  anecdote .  The  other  day,  walking  near 
my  house  in  the  country  by  the  waterside,  I  saw 
a  little  vixen  of  a  woman  belabouring  a  great, 
hulking  bargee,  her  husband,  with  blows.  When 
I  asked  the  man  how  he  took  it  all  so  quietly,  he 
said,  *  Well,  my  lord,  you  see,  it's  like  this.  It 
amuses  her  and  it  don't  hurt  me.'  That  explains 
my  silent  resignation  under  all  the  noble  Duke's 
abuse." 


247 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE    POLITICAL    ADVENTURES     OF    THE    HOUSE 
OF    STANLEY    AND    OTHERS 

Sir  John,  the  mediaeval  founder  of  the  family — Contrast  between 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  Earls — Lord  Stanley's  uses  at 
the  Foreign  Office  and  in  Fleet  Street — How  a  man  of  letters 
became  a  Consul — The  Stanley  Civil  Service  Committee — 
Enter  an  Ambassador  with  his  dispatch  boxes — Lord  Lyons 
on  himself  and  others — How  Lord  Granville  worked,  and 
how  Bismarck  disappeared— Granville  at  the  Foreign  Office 
in  fact  and  fiction — How  the  work  was  really  done — Sir 
Charles  Trevelyan's  wrinkle  and  its  results — How  Foreign 
Secretaries  leave  their  mark — The  confessions  of  a  many- 
cousined  minister — What  the  second  Lord  Granville  owed 
to  his  mother — "  EnchanUe  de  vous  voir^  madame^  tnvitic  ou 
non  invitie" 

The  Stanleys  are  associated  with  the  making  of 
Lancashire  ;  Lancashire  returned  the  compliment 
by  making  the  Stanleys.  The  family,  originally 
known  as  Audley,  from  its  twelfth -century  Cum- 
berland founder,  derived  its  present  name  from  its 
earliest  landed  property,  Stanleigh,  Staffordshire, 
and  remained  in  a  very  modest  position  till,  be- 
tween 1377  and  1399,  its  head,  Sir  John  Stanley, 
a  Macclesfield  trader^  was  appointed  Lord  Deputy 

248 


The  House  of  Stanley  and   Others 

of  Ireland  by  Richard  II,  with  extensive  grants 
of  land  on  the  other  side  of  St.  George's  Channel 
then,  and  170,000  acres  in  the  Isle  of  Man  after- 
wards. A  marriage  with  Isabella,  heiress  of  the 
Lathoms,  brought  an  increase  of  wealth  and  in- 
fluence. Knowsley  Park,  between  nine  and  ten 
miles  in  circumference,  came  by  this  marriage  to 
Sir  John  Stanley,  who  afterwards  fortified  the 
old  house  in  its  midst,  where  his  descendants 
lived  till  1 8 19.  Thus  began  the  family's  lucra- 
tive connection  with  Cottonopolis  on  the  Mersey. 
Its  development  resulted  in  their  local  supremacy, 
and  paved  the  way  to  immense  wealth  by  en- 
abling them  to  exact  practically  unlimited  sums 
out  of  the  profits  or  earnings  of  the  mills,  ware- 
houses, and  docks  constructed  by  the  representa- 
tives of  commerce  and  trade. 

The  Stanleys,  therefore,  achieved  wealth  and 
jx)wer  less  from  their  own  territorial  possessions 
than  from  the  industrial  and  commercial  enter- 
prise of  their  humbler  neighbours  and  depend- 
ents. 

Sic  fortis  Etruria  crevit, 
Scilicet  et  facta  est  rerum  pulcherrima  Roma. 

Such,  also,  w*as  the  rise  of  the  Peels,  the  Philipses, 
the  Chethams,  and  the  Arkwrights.  This  pro- 
gress reacted  morally  on  the  Stanleys  themselves. 

249 


Great  Victorians 

They  now,  in  one  generation  after  another,  com- 
bined the  taste  and  prowess  of  country  gentlemen 
with  growing  aptitude  for  mercantile  affairs. 
Whether  on  the  Turf  or  where  the  professional 
capitalists  on  the  Mersey  "  most  do  congregate," 
the  great  Earl,  who  had  only  one  senior  in  the 
Peerage,  Lord  Shrewsbury,  showed  himself  a 
first-rate  man  of  business,  and,  notwithstanding 
his  innate  feudalism,  never  in  practice  set  himself 
against  modern  ideas. i  The  Spectator  in  its 
Townsendian  and  Huttonian  period  used  to  com- 
pare the  fifteenth  Earl  of  Derby's  mind  to  a 
series  of  condensing  chambers.  From  that  point 
of  view  he  stands  out  from  the  family's  ranks  as 
not  less  a  type  of  his  own  time  than  was  his 
father  of  an  earlier  and  diametrically  different 
dispensation. 

The  fourteenth  Earl  complained  to  an  intimate 
friend,  the  late  Colonel  Napier  Sturt,  of  his  son 
and  heir's  disloyal  indifference  to  the  august 
family  traditions.  Nothing  could  be  more  un- 
just.      Whatever  the  party  label  of  any  among 

^  The  already  mentioned  boast  of  belonging  to  the  pre-scientific 
era  was  mere  rhetoric.  As  Chancellor  of  the  University  "the 
Rupert  of  Debate  "  did  all  he  could  to  encourage  natural  science 
as  an  examination  subject  in  the  Oxford  schools ;  while  the 
notion  of  a  theology  "school"  originated  in  germ  with  him, 
though  the  influence  of  Dr.  J.  R.  Magrath  chiefly  brought 
it  to  practical  maturity. 

250 


The  House  of  Stanley  and  Others 

their  representatives  to-day,   the   Great  Revolu- 
tion families  were  almost,  if  not  quite,   without 
exception  Whig.     So,  of  course,  was  "Rupert'* 
himself,    till    the   "  upsetting    of   the    coach "    in 
1834  saw  him  scramble  out  of  the  ruins  on  the 
Tory  side,  and  raised  him  to  the  Tory  leadership. 
This  was  in  exact  keeping  with  the  ancestral  pre- 
cedent of  quick  change  set  by  the  famous  Stanley 
who  veered  from  Yorkist  to  Lancastrian,  thence 
to  Yorkist  again  and  neutral,  till  he  married  the 
Countess   of  Richmond,   Henry  Tudor's  mother, 
and  so  closed  this  chapter  of  adventure  by  de- 
serting   his    lord    and    sovereign,    Richard    III, 
in  the  middle  of  Bos  worth  fight,  and  afterwards 
placing  the  defeated  and  dead  King's  crown  on 
his  stepson,  Henry  VH.     The  fifteenth  Earl,  in 
truth,  exactly  followed  the  paternal  footsteps  by 
beginning  under  his  father  at  the  Foreign  Office, 
becoming  the  first  Secretary  of  State  for  India 
afterwards,   by  separating  himself  from  his  old 
friends  in  1878,  by  definitely  joining  their  oppo- 
nents  two   years   later,    and   by   serving   in   Mr. 
Gladstone's  Cabinet  till  the  Home  Rule  convul- 
sions  of    1886.      When   Lord   Stanley   in    1857 
he  had  rendered  his  father  real  service  in  a  deli- 
cate matter  much  talked  about  at  the  time,  but 
soon  afterwards  forgotten.     The  fourteenth  Earl 
systematically  snubbed  the  political  Press^  Con* 

251 


Great  Victorians 

servative  as  well  as  Liberal.  At  that  time  the 
Standard  had  not  become  a  penny  paper  and  a 
Conservative  organ.  The  journal  issued  from 
the  same  office  at  the  price  of  threepence,  and 
always  ready  to  support  its  friends  in  return  for 
early  information,  was  the  Morning  Herald, 
*'  If,"  urged  the  then  Lord  Stanley,  **  you  do 
not  humour  this  broadsheet  you  will  find  it  your 
enemy,  just  as,  a  moment  after,  you  may  use  it 
for  your  good."  Eventually  Lord  Stanley  saw 
the  Herald  managers,  admitted  that  the  editor 
might  not  be  without  cause  for  complaining  he 
had  been  kept  out  of  news  from  Downing  Street, 
and  promised  him  some  measure  of  official  con- 
fidence in  the  future.  The  paper,  therefore, 
which  had  gone  to  great  expense  in  developing 
some  new  popular  features,  continued  to  support 
the  party.  For  the  time,  therefore,  the  great  Earl 
spoke  rather  less  slightingly  of  his  son.  He  had 
never  underrated  his  brains,  though  he  found  in 
their  quality  nothing  congenial  to  himself.  He 
now  publicly  recognized  his  heir's  statesmanship 
by  making  him  Foreign  Secretary  in  his  own 
Cabinet  of  1866-8,  and  by  bequeathing  him  in 
that  capacity  to  Disraeli.  The  fourteenth  Earl 
outlived  his  son's  first  tenure  of  that  office,  and 
spoke  on  the  various  subjects,  chiefly  of  Central 
Asian    policy,    then    occupying   the    department, 

252 


The  House  of  Stanley  and  Others 

It  was  during  this  period  that  a  sporting  friend 
and  parliamentary  supporter  of  the  Prime 
Minister,  the  then  Colonel  Napier  Sturt,  Lord 
Alington's  brother,  by  way  of  telling  his  chief 
what  he  knew  would  amuse  him,  said  to  him, 
*'  I  really  think  I  saw  Stanley  last  night  in  very 
pleasant  company  at  Cremorne."  **  I  only  wish 
to  goodness,"  returned  the  fond  father,  '*  you  had 
done  so.'*  As  a  fact,  the  then  Lord  Stanley, 
afterwards  the  fifteenth  Earl,  was  no  more  likely 
to  have  been  at  Cremome  than  when  in  Paris  on 
official  business  to  have  danced  the  can-can  at 
Mabille.  The  little  dialogue^  as  authentic  as  it  is 
slight,  may  serve  to  hint  the  difference  between 
the  two  best  known  of  the  nineteenth -century 
Derby  earls.  A  little  incident,  in  which  I  took 
some  part,  showed  that,  as  head  of  the  Ministry, 
1866-8,  Lord  Derby  had  no  more  idea  of  inter- 
fering with  his  son's  department  than  of  allowing 
himself  to  be  overruled  in  any  administra.tive 
detail  even  by  so  indispensable  a  lieutenant  in 
the  House  of  Commons  as  Disraeli.  A  very  old 
and  gifted  friend  of  mine,  a  first-rate  classical 
scholar  and  accomplished  writer,  wanted  to  get 
a  Consulship  which  had  just  fallen  vacant.  Not 
being  in  London,  by  way  of  saving  time  he  tele- 
graphed me  the  request  to  approach  the  Prime 
Minister   for   him  if    I   could,   and   remind  that 

253 


Great  Victorians 

potentate  of  his  past  services  for  the  party  with 
his  pen,  of  his  family's  connection  with  Lanca- 
shire, and  close  associations  at  various  times  with 
the  house  of  Knowsley.  "  I  will,"  the  Prime 
Minister  assured  me,  "  do  what  I  can,  and  support 
you  at  the  Foreign  Office  with  my  son,  the  Secre- 
tary of  State."  To  him  I  went  with  a  letter  from 
the  Prime  Minister.  On  my  way  I  heard  that 
another  candidate  for  the  p'Jace  was  backed  by 
Disraeli,  then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  I 
had,  however,  some  reason  for  thinking  that  on 
*'  public  form  "  my  friend  had  a  better  chance 
than,  notwithstanding  his  Disraelian  backing,  his 
most  formidable  competitor,  and  that  the  two 
members  of  the  house  of  Stanley  were  disposed 
to  resent  anything  that  looked  like  an  attempt, 
by  whomsoever  made,  to  influence  their  judg- 
ment. And  so  the  event  proved..  Eventually 
the  actual  Premier's  influence  prevailed,  and  the 
person  in  whom  I  was  interested  got  the  appoint- 
ment, though  I  heard  in  more  than  one  quarter 
that  he  had  not  the  ghost  of  a  chance. 

Ten  years  later  the  fifteenth  Lord  Derby,  as 
private  member  and  afterwards  as  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, perpetuated  the  Stanley  influence  in  the 
Upper  House,  in  the  face  of  bitter  personal 
attacks  and  a  constant  bombardment  of  malicious 
anecdotes.     At  that  time  the  family  house  was 

254 


The  House  of  Stanley  and  Others 

still  in  St.  James's  Square,  and  was  constantly 
kept  open  for  innumerable  family  friends  and 
relatives  ;  its  master,  therefore,  assured  himself 
the  quiet  half-hour  in  the  evening  by  walking 
across  Pall  Mall  and  sipping  a  glass  of  the  famous 
port  at  the  Travellers'  Club.  As  a  boy  at  Eton 
first  and  Rugby  afterwards,  his  tongue  had  always 
seemed  a  little  too  large  for  his  mouth,  causing 
him  to  speak  with  a  certain  thickness.  This  I 
heard  from  his  own  doctor,  while  the  late  Sir 
Richard  Quain  circumstantially  confirmed  the 
story,  entirely  disposing,  as  it  did,  of  the  calum- 
nies raised  on  the  foundation  of  Lord  Derby's 
evening  visits  to  his  favourite  house  of  call.  As 
Lord  Stanley  he  first  made  his  mark  on  public 
life  in  the  Palmerstonian  period  as  chairman  of 
the  committee  inquiring  into  the  Civil  Service 
system,  anticipating,  as  that  did,  many  of  the 
reforms  finally  carried  out  under  Lord  Salisbury 
three  or  four  years  later. 

One  instance  of  Lord  Stanley's  prescience  in 
foreign  affairs  may  be  given.  So  early  as  1867 
he  believed  war  between  France  and  Prussia  to 
be  inevitable  if  the  Prussian  garrison  were  not 
withdrawn  from  Luxemburg.  That  was  done. 
For  the  time  the  danger  disappeared.  "  I  am 
not,  however,"  said  Lord  Stanley,  "  sanguine  of 
averting   hostilities  on  another  issue  some  time 

255 


Great  Victorians 

later."  When  in  1870  the  long -smouldering 
embers  burst  forth  into  flame,  Europe  was  taken 
by  surprise.  Lord  Clarendon  had  been  followed 
(June  27th)  at  the  Foreign  Office  by  Lord  Gran- 
ville. The  new  minister,  the  day  before  he 
received  the  seals  of  office,  was  told  by  the  very 
experienced  Under-Secretary,  Hammond,  that  h( 
never  knew  so  great  a  lull  in  foreign  afl"airs. 
Except  the  recent  murder  of  British  subjects 
by  Greek  brigands,  he  was  not  aware  of  any 
particular  question  with  which  Lord  Granville 
would  have  to  deal.  The  minister,  indeed,  knewi 
better.  Earlier  and  more  exact  news  from  the 
coulisses  of  European  diplomacy,  often  through 
other  than  official  channels,  reached  him  than 
flowed  into  the  private  room'  of  Lord  Palmer - 
ston  himself.  During  the  eighties  one  of  the 
most  frequent  and  agreeable  apparitions  at 
country  houses  I  might  be  visiting  was  Lord 
Lyons,  with  the  inevitable  Mr.  George  Sheffield 
in  the  carriage  sent  to  fetch  him^  at  the  station, 
in  a  travelling  cap  that  covered  all  his  head, 
with  part  of  his  face,  followed  by  a  fly  full  of 
despatch  boxes.  I  have  recently  seen  it  stated 
that  both  in  his  despatches  and  in  Parliament 
Lord  Granville  signalized  his  instalment  in  the 
Foreign  Office  by  an  assurance  that  the  world 

would  continue  at  peace  for  som^  time  to  come. 

256 


The  House  of  Stanley  and  Others 

•'  Lord  Granville,"  said  Lord  Lyons,  "  never  did 
anything  of  the  kind.  All  that  he  wrote  to  my 
Embassy  in  Paris  and  said  in  Parliament  breathed 
the  spirit  of  apprehension  and  misgiving."  No 
man,  thought  Lord  Lyons,  ever  worked  harder 
or  more  incessantly,  night  and  day,  at  the  busi- 
ness of  peace-making.  As  Lord  Granville  said 
in  private  conversation,  the  position  for  himself 
and  his  Government  was  very  much  that  of  a 
man  trying  to  prevent  a  fire  with  inflammable 
materials  all  around  him.  Every  one  had  his 
hand  full  of  matches  ready  to  ignite.  Therefore, 
he  insisted,  it  was  not  the  moment  to  elaborate 
inquiries  as  to  who  brought  the  materials,  but 
to  remove  them,  and  so  avert  the  greatest  of 
calamities.  Another  thing,  went  on  Lord  Lyons, 
in  which  Lord  Granville  was  perfectly  right  was 
that  Napoleon  III  wished  for  peace,  that  the 
Empress  was  warlike,  and  that  the  decisive  steps 
finally  making  peace  impossible  were  those  taken 
by  General  Leboeuf. 

Some  years  later  I  had  frequent  opportuni- 
ties of  seeing  Lord  Granville.  The  general  im- 
pression left  by  his  talk  and  manner  was  that  he 
had  no  love  for  the  Prussians,  and  that  he  would 
willingly  make  the  best  of  the  French,  always 
excepting  the  Due  de  Gramont ;  for  him,  Lord 
Granville's  antipathy  could  only  be  compared  to 

257  R 


Great  Victorians 

the  mutual  dislike  of  the  fifteenth  Lord  Derby 
and  the  Due  Decazes  during  the  year  of  the  Suez 
Canal  shares  purchase.  *'  Have  you,"  I  once 
ventured  to  ask  Loid  Granville,  "  had  any  direct 
dealings  with  or  ever  met  Prince  Bismarck?" 
"  Not  exactly,"  came  the  answer.  **  When  in 
attendance  on  the  Queen  I  was  once  in  a  garden 
with  him  at  Baden.  Suddenly  there  rang  out 
through  the  air  the  word  '  Sharp  !  *  meaning  that 
the  Queen  would  appear  on  the  scene  in  a  few 
minutes.  It  was  not  lost  upon  the  'man  of 
blood  and  iron,'  who  suddenly  disappeared, 
plunging,  as  it  seemed,  into  a  shrubbery,  and 
was  then  lost  sight  of,  never  again  to  be  seen 
by  me." 

Among  Foreign  Secretaries  none  can  have  sur- 
passed Lord  Granville  in  the  faculty  of  isolating 
himself  amid  company  from  all  sounds  and  per- 
sons around  him,  and  working  at  his  papers  even 
in  the  conversation-room  of  a  foreign  hotel.  No 
one  ever  worked  so  hard  with  so  little  appearance 
of  effort.  This  and  a  certain  epicureanism  of 
bearing  sometimes  gave  the  idea  of  dalliance 
with,  rather  than  active  performance  of,  his 
employments.  One  used  to  hear  the  very 
absurd  story  of  his  postponing  the  signature 
of  some  treaty  or  other  equally  important 
paper   till   at   last  he   was  hunted  down  by  the 

258 


The  House  of  Stanley  and  Others 

foreign  attach^  as  he  was  entering  his 
brougham  to  go  out  to  dinner.  Pen  and  ink 
were  quickly  forthcoming,  and  so  at  last  the 
business  was  dispatched.  The  truth,  however, 
is  this.  A  continental  diplomatist  stationed  in 
London  had  for  some  time  been  importuning  the 
Secretary  of  State  with  inconvenient  questions. 
As  long  as  possible  Lord  Granville  kept  out  of 
his  way,  but  was  finally  pounced  upon  by  him 
just  as  the  carriage  was  starting  on  the  homeward 
drive   from   Downing  Street. 

Comparing  him  with  other  Foreign  Ministers 
or  their  Cabinet  colleagues  of  my  time,  Lord 
Granville  in  his  own  fashion  and  in  his  own  hours 
was  a  remarkably  hard  worker,  never,  as  he  once 
put  it  to  me,  intimidated  by  detail,  and  always 
recognizing  that  to  grasp  principles  one  must 
surmount  an  infinite  amount  of  drudgery.  He 
did  not  keep  his  secretaries  so  late  at  work  in 
Downing  Street  as  was  done  by  Lord  Palmerston. 
Like  Palmerston,  however,  he  took  work,  though 
in  greater  quantity,  home  with  him.  If  he  did  not 
stay  up  so  late  at  night  with  it,  that  was  largely 
because,  early  in  his  course,  he  acted  on  a  sugges- 
tion of  his  friend  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan.  That 
most  strenuous  and  least  self -sparing  of  officials 
never  looked  at  a  paper  after  beginning  to  feel 

fatigued  over -night.     However  early,  he  went  to 

259 


Great  Victorians 

bed,  and  in  a  very  short  time  to  sleep.  Shortly 
after  midnight,  or  "in  the  small  hours  beyond 
twelve,"  he  would  wake  with  clear  head,  rein- 
vigorated  brain,  and  hungry  for  his  uncompleted 
task  ;  the  materials  for  that  were  at  his  bedside. 
With  these  he  occupied  himself  till  all  was  done, 
only  a  little  later  than  he  might  have  been  return- 
ing from  an  evening  party.  "  I  tried  the  idea," 
was  Lord  Granville's  comment,  "  directly  Sir 
Charles  gave  it  to  me.  Whatever  good  work  I 
may  have  done,  I  think  this  in  great  measure  to 
be  the  secret  of  it."  Every  department  of  State 
had,  from  Lord  Granville's  point  of  view,  its 
domestic  idiosyncrasies.  These,  he  thought, 
should  be  stamped  upon  its  official  arrangements 
down  to  the  smallest  detail.  Herein  he  resembled 
Palmerston,  who,  on  going  to  the  Home  Office  in 
1852,  insisted  on  the  despatches  being  folded 
differently  from  the  Foreign  Office  fashion.  So 
Lord  Granville,  migrating  to  the  Privy  Council 
Office  in  1853,  introduced  an  entirely  new  ribbon 
for  tying  up  papers. 

"  The  most  exercising  time,"  the  present  writer 
once  heard  Lord  Granville  say,  "  I  ever  went 
through  was  in  Lord  Aberdeen's  Coalition  Cabi- 
net, where  I  only  resigned  the  Presidentship  of 
the  Council  in  1854.  Since  Pulteney  with  the 
help  of  Swift,  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 

260 


The  House  of  Stanley  and  Others 

centuries,  rallied  the  Opposition  by  organizing 
its  journalism,  so  many  public  men  had  never 
actively  mixed  themselves  up  with  newspapers 
before.  Disraeli  had  his  organ  in  the  Conser- 
vative Press.  Lord  Palmerston  inspired,  and 
often  practically  wrote,  leading  articles  in  the 
Morning  Post.  The  Star  had  become  the 
favourite  medium  of  John  Bright,  the  Manchester 
School,  and  extreme  Radicalism  generally.  I 
myself  was  accused  of  being  in  close  personal 
alliance  with  Delane  and  The  Times.  The  Duke 
of  Newcastle,  when  Colonial  Secretary,  in  the 
kindest,  friendliest,  but  most  pointed  manner, 
put  me  on  my  guard  against  identifying  myself 
or  my  colleagues  with  the  opinions  and  policy  of 
the  great  newspaper.  Delane  and  Reeve  fre- 
quently dined  with  me  in  Bruton  Street.  Charles 
Greville  was  in  constant  intercourse  with  and  in 
the  close  confidence  of  both.  Social  civilities 
seemed  to  be  the  best  mode  of  admitting  to  com- 
munity of  interest,  as  well  as  intercourse  with  the 
higher  classes  and  the  public  men,  those  whose 
pen  can  exercise  such  enormous  influence  for 
good  or  bad.  As  to  Printing  House  Square/* 
continued  Lord  Granville,  "  during  my  time  at  the 
Foreign  Office  I  never  gave  effect  to  the  direct 
and  indirect  overtures  made  to  me  from  The 
Times,    nor    did    I    ever,    directly   or    indirectly, 

261 


Great  Victorians 

give  information  to  any  writer  in  The  Times. ^ 
Five  years  before  the  beginning  of  Delane's  time, 
Disraeli's  lifelong  friendship  with  the  newspaper 
had  been  secured  by  the  publication  of  his 
"  Runnymede  Letters  "  during  Barnes'  editorship 
in  1836.  The  conductor  of  the  famous  broad- 
sheet in  the  second  half  of  the  Victorian  Age 
sometimes  came  up  in  the  social  conversations 
in  which  the  Conservative  leader  and  the  Whig 
Earl  exchanged  opinions  on  men  and  things. 
**  What,"  once  asked  Lord  Beaconsfield,  '*  do  you 
really  think  of  Delane  ?  "  "  I  think,"  came  the 
answer,  "  I  would  sooner  wait  till  Delane  is  dead 
before  I  say." 

Under  Delane,  as  to  a  greatly  diminished  extent 
under  his  successors,  and  even  occasionally  in  the 
existing  dispensation,  whoever  was  out,  and  who- 
ever was  in,  all  foreigners  persistently  invested 
The  Times  utterances  with  something  of  an  official 
and  inspired  character.  So,  too,  as  regards  Lord 
Granville  and  the  department  which  he  first  began 
to  control  in  the  December  of   1 8  5  i .     Whoever 

*  Lord  Fitzmaurice's  two  volumes  are  not  merely  a  masterpiece 
of  faithful  biography  but  a  survey  from  behind  the  scenes  of  the 
chief  events  happening  in  the  period  recorded  and  of  the  men 
who  helped  to  make  them.  They  also  contain,  vol.  i.  p.  91, 
further  details  than  those  given  above  in  Lord  Granville's  own 
words  of  the  personal  relations  between  Bruton  Street  and 
Blackfriars. 

2^2 


The  House  of  Stanley  and  Others 

at  a  later  date  the  Liberal  Foreign  Minister  might 
be,  the  other  side  regarded  Granville  as  per- 
sonifying the  foreign  policy  views  of  responsible 
Liberalism.  Even  when  a  Conservative  Premier 
had  his  own  Foreign  Minister,  like  Lord  Derby  in 
1852,  he  went  to  Lord  Granville  rather  than  Lord 
Malmesbury  for  advice  at  a  critical  moment.  The 
new  Emperor  was  supposed  to  be  bent  on  con- 
fiscating the  Orleans  property.  That  purpose, 
rather  than  the  other  iniquities  of  the  Imperial 
regime,  chiefly  embittered  Printing  House  Square 
against  the  nascent  Empire.  Napoleon  did  not 
conceal  his  extreme  annoyance  at  the  language  of 
The  Times.  In  England  both  parties  saw  the 
danger  of  such  abuse  in  such  a  quarter  goading 
the  Emperor  to  acts  of  violence.  Lord  Granville 
so  far  complied  with  the  wishes  of  his  Conserva- 
tive successor  at  the  Foreign  Office  as  to  express 
a  hope  to  the  great  editor  that,  without  any  actual 
sacrifice,  lie  would  lay  down  his  policy  with  rather 
less  asperity  of  tone.  In  those  days  Englishmen 
of  all  classes  were  much  divided  about  the  coming 
Napoleon  III  and  his  doings.  His  chief  sup- 
porters met  at  Mrs.  Mountjoy  Martin's  house, 
his  chief  social  headquarters  during  his  London 
exile,  frequented  during  the  early  fifties  and  long 
afterwards  by  believers  in  the  Napoleonic  legend, 
then  in  favour  ^vith  iecclesiasticai  as  well  as  secular 

363 


Great  Victorians 

circles.  For  the  High  Church  people,  brought 
into  ascendancy  by  the  Oxford  Tractarian  Move- 
ment, were  alarmed  by  the  menaces  of  the  1848 
Revolution  to  Church  as  well  as  State.  Monta- 
lembert,!  a  great  figure  at  the  Mountjoy  Martin 
gatherings,  then  Napoleon's  chief  adherent,  per- 
suaded a  good  many  that  the  new  Empire  would 
mean  not  only  the  Papal  restoration,  but  war 
against  infidelity  and  a  religious  revival  all  round. 
During  the  nineteenth  century's  first  half  the 
new  Bonapartism  had  another  English  exponent 
and  champion  in  one  of  the  least  known  but  most 
remarkable  men  of  his  time,  a  retired  lawyer  who 
lived  at  Torquay,  whom  as  a  boy  I  had  often  seen 
there,  who  was  intimate  with  Disraeli,  the  two 
Bulwers,  the  novelist  and  the  diplomatist,  and  in 
request  with  a  far  wider  circle  because  of  his  skill 
in  healing  family  feuds  and  getting  young  men 
out  of  scrapes  .2  The  two  formerly  most  active 
of  Napoleon  Ill's  supporters  in  general  society 
were  Sir  Arthur  Otway  and  Sir  H.  Drummond 
Wolff.     Both  these  had  seen  him  enter  Paris  as 

^  Montalembert  continued  to  support  Napoleon  III  till  his 
confiscation  of  the  Orleans  property.  He  then  became  the 
Empire's  bitterest  opponent,  and  remained  so  till  his  death,  in 
1870. 

"  I  leave  this  paragon  anonymous  because,  though  I  heard 
him  spoken  of  as  Mr.  Stuart,  I  was  told  this  was  not  his  real 
name,  and  that  he  had  formerly  been  better  known  by  another. 

264 


The  House  of  Stanley  and  Others 

President  of  the  Republic ;  while  Drummond 
Wolff,  when  Lord  Malmesbury's  private  secre- 
tary, had  negotiated  with  him  several  State 
matters.  The  best  men  of  letters  at  the  time, 
A.  W.  Kinglake,  Hayward,  and  Henry  Reeve, 
were  all  strong  Orleanists,  and  formed  a  little 
set,  extending  across  the  Straits  of  Dover,  with 
Adolphe  Thiers  as  its  chief  representative  in 
Paris . 

Lord  Granville's  acquaintance  of  every  kind 
in  the  Pare  Monceau  as  well  as  the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain  fitted  him,  as  far  as  was  possible,  to 
play  the  social  mediator  between  Orleanist  and 
Bonapartist.  The  happiness  of  the  vein  in  which 
he  could  do  this  may  be  judged  from  his  treat- 
ment, about  the  same  time,  in  the  House  of  Lords 
of  Lord  Ellenborough's  taunt  that  the  Palmerston 
Cabinet  was  nothing  more  than  a  family  party. 

"  My  lords,"  he  said,  *'  I  must  make  a  clean 
breast  of  it  at  once.  Some  of  those  who  went 
before  me  had  such  quivers  full  of  daughters  who 
did  not  die  old  maids  that  I  have  relations  uj>on 
this  side  of  the  House,  relations  upon  the  other, 
and  that  I  had  the  unparalleled  misfortune  to 
have  several  in  the  last  Protectionist  Administra- 
tion." All  his  arts  of  personal  popularity  and 
opportunities  of  social  charm  were  used  to  con- 
solidate the  old  acres  into  social  unity  that  should 

265 


Great  Victorians 

prove  as  much  to  the  real  interest  of  the  classes 
as  of  the  masses.  That  object,  never  lost 
sight  of,  came  out  still  more  strongly  towards  the 
end  of  the  sixties  in  connection  with  the  Jews.  In 
1868  the  Carlton  Club  sent  down  as  its  candidate 
for  the  seat  at  Sandwich  a  Jew,  the  future  Baron 
Henry  de  Worms.  About  the  same  time  Lord 
Shaftesbury  pressed  on  Mr.  Gladstone  Sir  Moses 
Montefiore's  claim  to  a  peerage,  and  the  Prince 
of  Wales  complained  to  Lord  Granville  himself 
about  the  defective  representation  in  the  Upper 
House  of  new  types  of  experience  and  minds. 
Nothing  was  more  important,  Lord  Granville 
agreed  with  the  Heir -apparent,  than  the  attach- 
ment to  the  aristocracy  of  the  Hebrew  wealth, 
culture,  cosmopolitanism,  and  power—and  if  to 
his  own  political  divisions  of  that  caste,  so  much 
the  better. 

My  own  visits  to  Lord  Granville  were  chiefly 
at  his  London  house.  Once  or  twice,  however 
during  his  wardenship  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  I 
visited  him  at  Walmer  Castle .  Here  the  company 
was  widely  representative.  The  social  mixture 
seemed  to  delight  no  one  more  than  the  Lord 
Warden.  "  In  these  matters,"  he  said  to  me, 
*'  I  owe  a  great  deal  to  both  my  parents,  for 
when  at  the  Paris  Embassy  my  father  liked  to 
see  '  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.'     My  mother 

z66 


The  House  of  Stanley  and  Others 

was  a  perfect  hostess,  and  was  never  disconcerted 
by  the  occasional  presence  of  a  stranger  she  did 
not  know  by  sight  and  had  never  asked,  her  wel- 
come in  such  cases  always  being,  *  Enchantee  de 
vous  voir,  madame,  Invitee  ou  non  invitee  '  "  In 
an  earlier  chapter  the  scion  of  an  old  Whig  line 
was  seen  as  the  successful  champion  of  a  Hebrew 
claim  to  a  seat  at  St.  Stephen's,  and  later  was, 
with  some  interruptions,  for  twelve  years  col- 
league in  the  representation  of  London  of  the 
first  Jew  Member,  Baron  Lionel  de  Rothschild. 
Ten  years  later  the  other  descendant  of  a  Whig 
house  now  recalled  was  to  promote  the  logical 
completion  of  that  movement  by  urging  upon 
the  Prime  Minister  of  the  day  the  practical  reason 
for  converting  the  German  barony  into  an  English 
peerage . 


267 


CHAPTER    VIII 
FROM   ST.   MARY'S,   WINTON,   TO    CURZON   STREET 

At  Winchester — Old  Trollope,  young  Trollope,  and  *'  Bob " 
Lowe — Tait  is  fined  a  pound  at  the  meeting  of  the  Debating 
Society — Robert  Lowe  as  Member  for  Kidderminster — 
His  article,  "The  Past  Session  and  the  New  Parliament,' 
in  the  Edinburgh  Review — Lord  John  Russell's  wrath  at 
Lowe,  whom  he  regarded  as  the  devil  is  said  to  look  upon 
holy  water — His  Trojan  horse  similes — An  albino — "The 
next  thing  a  nigger  with  his  banjo  and  bones " — "  Vers 
de  sociiti^^ — Lowe  and  Canning's  despatch  to  Lord  Minto — 
Lord  Lyons'  letter  from  the  British  Embassy  at  Paris — 
What  Lowe  owed  to  Disraeli — His  wrath  at  the  result  of 
the  Abyssinian  War — His  rapidity  of  utterance  but  not 
of  reading — Disraeli  on  Mrs.  Lowe — Mr.    Gladstone  as  a 

raconteur    and    on     "the    big,    big    d "—A    pupil, 

together  with  Henry  Edward  Manning,  of  Bishop  Words- 
worth— Lord  Goschen's  opinion  of  Gladstone — Remarks 
about  the  Oriel  common-room — At  Lady  Strangford's — 
Lord  and  Lady  Aberdeen's  guest  at  Dollis  Hill — The 
G.O.M.  wins  the  race  to  the  tea-table — His  kindness 
to  the  outcast  woman — Disraeli's  dislike  of  Thackeray 
on  account  of  his  burlesque  "  Codlingsby  " — He  finds 
Dickens  a  "  delightful  man  "  at  the  Stanhope  dinner — 
The  trio,  "  Popanilla,"  "  Piccadilly,"  and  the  "  New 
Republic  "  (Mr.  W.  H.  Mallock) — His  aphorisms  re- 
produced by  Mrs.  Reynolds — "  No  one  is  quite  well,  but 
268 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

I  am  tolerably  well" — His  advice  to  the  two  little  boys — 
Lady  Chesterfield — Her  sister  Lady  Anson's  retort — His 
gratitude  to  his  wife — At  the  hotel  in  Bournemouth — His 
last  words,  "I  am  oppressed." 

Others  than  those  already  recalled  were  num- 
bered among  the  survivors  to  my  time  of  the 
men  who  had  places  in  the  Coalition  Ministry 
(1852-5)  and  Lord  Palmerston's  first  Govern- 
ment, which  came  afterwards.  In  consequence 
of  family  Wykehamist  associations,  Robert  Lowe 
had  been  a  familiar  name  to  me  from  my  child- 
hood. At  the  Winchester  of  my  father's  and 
other  near  relatives'  time  the  cry  as  of  a  small 
boy  in  great  pain  would  sometimes  be  heard  ; 
that,  it  generally  turned  out,  was  only  Tom  Trol- 
lope  thrashing  his  younger  brother  (Anthony  the 
novelist).  Presently  came  a  cry  still  more  pitiful 
and  piercing.  "  Oh,"  it  used  to  be  said,  *'  that  must 
be  Lowe  thrashing  both  of  them."  ^  As  fellow 
and  tutor  of  "  University,"  Lowe  passed  for  the 
best  classical  coach  as  well  as  one  of  the  best 
scholars  in  the  Oxford  of  his  day.  Several  of 
my  people,  belonging  to  my  father's  generation, 
had  been  his  pupils,  and  recited  to  me  long 
passages  from  the  Grseco-Latin  commemorations 

^  So  ran  the  story,  which,  it  must  be  said,  is  open  to 
doubt.  For  both  the  TioUopes  were  collegers ;  the  future  Lord 
Sherbrooke  was  a  commoner,  and  the  two  classes  of  boys  did 
not  see  much  of  each  other. 

269 


Great  Victorians 

(like  the  *' Uniomachia  ")  of  his  encounter  with 

other  members  of  the   Debating   Society,   then, 

of  course,   a  much  smaller  affair  than   it   soon 

afterwards   became.      In  this   way   I   heard  how 

Lowe  as  chairman  ruled  the  meeting  with  a  rod 

of  iron,  how,  when  Tait  interrupted  somebody's 

speech,  the  future  Primate  was  fined  by  him  a 

pound,  and  threatened  with  a  further  mulct  if 

he   again    insulted    the    "  chair "    by    an    appeal 

against  its  authority. 

Subsequently  to  his  Oxford  days  he  found  a 

place  among  the  most  brilliant,  as  well  as  earliest, 

of  those  cited  by  Disraeli  more  than  a  generation 

afterwards  as  illustrating  the  unity  of  public  life 

in  distant  parts  of  the  British  Empire  :   "  To-day 

a  man  is  Member  for  Sydney,  finds  a  nugget  or 

shears  a  thousand  flocks,  and  becomes  Member 

for  London  to-morrow."    Having  made  a  fortune 

at  the  Sydney  Bar  and  a  reputation  in  the  Sydney 

Parliament,  Lowe  reappeared  in  England  during 

1850.     Very  soon  thereafter  (in  1852)  he  began 

his  English  parliamentary  course  as  Member  for 

Kidderminster,  and  twelve  months  afterwards  his 

official  apprenticeship  under  Lord  Aberdeen  as 

Secretary  to  the  Board  of  Control .    Neither  then, 

nor  under  Palmerston  as  Vice-President  of  the 

Board  of  Trade,  did  he  become  well  known  to 

the  public. 

270 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

During  these  years  some  one  asked  a  friend 
in  the  Lower  House,  "  Have  you  heard  Lowe's 
speeches  this  session?"  *'  Not  exactly,"  was  the 
reply  ;  "  why  should  I  ?  I  have  read  his  articles 
in  The  Times.''  It  was  not  his  tongue  but  his 
pen  that  was  first  to  fix  general  attention  upon 
him  in  the  spring  of  1857.  "The  Past  Session 
and  the  New  Parliament  "  formed  the  title  of 
the  most  sensational  article  in  the  spring  number 
of  the  Edinburgh  Review;  it  constituted  a 
vitriolic  attack  on  Lord  John  Russell  and  Glad- 
stone for  having  resigned  their  places  under 
Palmerston  in  1855.  These  men  had  acted 
treacherously  by  their  colleagues  and  their  party. 
They  were  therefore  trounced  in  the  old  Whig 
"  blue  and  yellow  "  with  a  severity  which  caused 
its  proprietors  to  tremble  in  their  shoes  at  the 
possible  consequences  to  the  fortunes  of  their 
periodical .  The  personal  motive  of  the  onslaught 
showed  itself,  they  protested,  in  every  paragraph. 
Lord  John,  however,  had  at  once  divined  the 
authorship  of  the  anonymous  effusion,  and  was 
not  easily  appeased.  He  regarded  Lowe  much 
as  the  devil  is  said  to  look  upon  holy  water,  and 
would  be  content  with  nothing  less  than  that  the 
demand  for  a  second  edition  of  the  number, 
caused  by  this  *'  success  of  scandal,"  should  be 
refused. 

271 


Great  Victorians 

As  a  House  of  Commons  debater  and  orator, 
the  man  who  died  Lord  Sherbrooke  first  won 
universal  notoriety  during  the  debates  of  1866 
for  his  attacks  on  the  Russell-Gladstone  Reform 
Bill,  for  his  hard  and  long-worked  Trojan  horse 
similes,  and  for  one  or  two  highly  classical,  terse, 
and  pungent  denunciations  of  democracy.  "What 
like,"  as  the  Scotch  say,  ''  was  the  man  who  in 
his  fifty-fifth  year,  just  midway  through  the 
Victorian  Age,  had  so  unprecedentedly  excited  the 
admiration  of  many,  the  detestation  of  some,  and 
the  attention  of  all?"  His  hair  was  perfectly 
white,  but,  like  the  prisoner  of  Chillon,  "  not 
with  age  "  ;  his  eyebrows  and  lashes  were  of 
the  same  hue.  His  little  deep -set  eyes  were  pink. 
He  was,  in  fact,  an  albino.  "  Bless  my  soul  !  " 
said  one  of  the  present  writer's  mentors,  an  old 
county  Member,  who  often  introduced  me  under 
the  gallery,  "  I  wonder  what  we  are  coming 
to.  We  have  just  got  what  they  call  an  Albanian. 
The  next  thing  we  shall  have,  I  suppose,  is  a 
nigger  with  his  banjo  and  bones  I  "  A  trifle 
above  rather  than  below  the  middle  height,  "  the 
Albanian "  had  a  strong,  clear,  well -managed 
voice,  penetrating  every  corner  of  the  assembly,  a 
defiant  manner,  a  fair  command  of  his  temper, 
but  a  visible  intolerance  of  any  approach  to  con- 
tradiction or  opposition. 

272 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

These  characteristics  belonged  to  an  individual 
who  combined  in  himself  at  least  two  or  three 
distinct  personalities.  It  was  not  that  he  had 
any  thought  of  being  *'  all  things  to  all  men,'*  but 
simply  that  different  people  seemed  to  touch  dif- 
ferent springs  of  his  being.  If  to  some  he  seemed 
rasping,  repellent,  contemptuous,  that  was  because 
they  went  to  the  wrong  partition  of  his  identity. 
Had  they  approached  him  rightly,  they  would 
have  found  a  kindly  witted,  genial  companion, 
whose  sparkling  talk  and  ready  turn  for  acrostic- 
spinning  and  charade -contriving  brought  the  sun- 
shine of  amusement  into  the  dullest  and  darkest 
country  houses.  To  put  it  differently,  Mr.  Lowe 
was  a  sort  of  social  olive,  to  be  thoroughly  en- 
joyed only  by  social  and  intellectual  palates  that 
had  undergone  a  thorough  course  of  preparatory 
discipline. 

On  one  of  the  few  occasions  I  found  myself  at 
the  dinner -table  with  him  he  engaged  me  in  con- 
versation and  seemed  to  expect  that  I  should 
say  something.  I  had  heard  of  his  happy  turn 
for  the  lighter  kind  of  poetry,  and  therefore 
referred  to  one  of  Frederick  Locker's  composi- 
tions published  in  that  morning's  Times.  I 
described  them  as  vers  de  societe.  His  coun- 
tenance at  once  darkened  and  fell.  What  did 
I   mean?     The   rhymes    I    referred   to   were   not 

273  s 


Great  Victorians 

what  I  called  them .  They  were  occasional  verses, 
and  so  on,  and  so  on.  Presently  our  host,  Lord 
Carnarvon,  as  if  to  change  the  subject,  asked  me 
whether  I  had  sent  Lord  Lyons,  whom  I  had 
recently  met  at  Highclere,  some  verses,  my  quota- 
tions from  which  had  amused  our  then  French 
Ambassador.  "What  were  they?"  some  one 
asked.  "  A  rhymed  despatch  from  George  Can- 
ning at  the  Foreign  Office  to  Lord  Minto  at  The 
Hague  about  a  necklace."  *'  Canning,"  said  Lord 
Sherbrooke,  as  he  had  then  become,  "  never 
wrote  anything  of  the  sort.  It  exists  only  in 
your  own  imagination."  "  It  is  at  least,"  I  said, 
with  all  proper  meekness,  "  to  be  found  in  the 
two  volumes  of  Hookham  Frere's  Remains  ;  for 
I  copied  them  out  from  the  book  for  that  purpose 
before  forwarding  them  to  Lord  Lyons  a  few 
days  ago."  "  Before,"  rejoined  his  lordship,  "  I 
could  accept  that,  I  need  some  evidence  of  it." 
"  That,"  I  said,  "  happens  to  be  in  my  pocket  and 
is  quite  at  your  service."  Remembering  Lord 
Sherbrooke's  eye  troubles,  I  handed  to  our  host 
to  read  aloud  if  he  thought  fit  the  little  document 
which  I  have  just  mentioned,  and  which  would 
show  I  was  not  intentionally  deceiving  my 
illustrious  fellow -guest.  This  letter  is  before  me 
now  and  runs  as  follows  :— 


274 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

British  Embassy,  Paris, 
February  5,  1886. 
Dear  Mr.  Escott, 

I  thank  you  heartily  for  so  kindly  recollecting  my  wish  to 
see  Canning's  despatch  in  verse  to  Lord  Minto.  It  has  amused 
me  much,  as  I  have  a  liking  for  the  somewhat  formal  pleasantries 
of  the  Canning  and  Hookham  Frere  period.  When  you  next 
come  to  Paris  I  shall  claim  your  promise  to  see  me,  and  let  me 
know  all  about  that  other  versifier,  Mortimer  Collins,  in  the 
"British  Birds,"  who  wrote  the  drollery  you  introduced  to  me, 
beginning  "  There  was  an  ape  in  the  days  that  were  earlier." 

Believe  me, 

Yours  very  truly, 

Lyons. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  in  the  little 
incident  just  recalled  Lord  Sherbrooke  was 
influenced  by  any  conscious  animosity  against 
myself.  Of  him,  perhaps,  as  of  others,  it  might 
be  said  that  knowledge  was  his  forte  and  omni- 
science his  foible.  What  Lord  Lyons  called  the 
little  pleasantries  of  the  eighteenth  and  early 
nineteenth  centuries  were  considered  by  Lord 
Sherbrooke  one  of  his  own  specialities.  He  may 
therefore  have  resented  my  accidental  acquaint- 
ance with  something  in  this  department  of  letters 
that  he  did  not  himself  at  once  recall.  The  real 
explanation,  however,  must  probably  be  found 
in  the  fact  of  his  having  been  as  contentious  as 
he  was  gifted.  He  had  a  passion  for  contra- 
diction which  in  certain  humours  he  could  not 
restrain.     That  in  his  public  life  was  the  secret 

275 


Great  Victorians 

of  his  almost  lifelong  duel  with  Disraeli.  Two 
of  a  trade  never  agree.  Both  men  had  the 
same  gift,  nearly  in  the  same  degree,  of  con- 
densing malicious  sentiment  into  epigrammatic 
form. 

At  the  time  of  the  Abyssinian  War,  during 
Disraeli's  first  Premiership  (1868),  Lowe's  dis- 
plays of  petulance  against  the  minister  he  hated 
were  ill-mannered  rather  than  effective.  Disraeli 
took  them  very  quietly — indeed,  laughed  them  off 
in  the  old  Palmerstonian  manner.  *'The  Member 
for  London  University,"  he  said,  "  were  he 
capable  of  gratitude,  would  remember  that  my 
Reform  Bill  created  his  constituency,  and  that 
but  for  me  he  would  not  to-day  have  a  seat  here." 
Lowe  had  predicted  every  kind  of  failure  and 
calamity  as  sure  to  result  from  the  expedition 
to  Magdala.  As  Disraeli,  in  his  happiest  vein, 
put  it,  he  had  discovered  a  certain  African  fly 
which  would  decimate  the  British  forces.  The 
right  honourable  gentleman,  in  fact,  was  as  vitu- 
perative of  the  insects  of  Abyssinia  as  if  they 
had  been  British  workmen.  Cassandra,  however, 
turned  out  an  untrue  prophetess,  and  before  the 
close  of  April  1868  the  Prime  Minister  could  not 
only  exult  over  his  falsified  foe,  but  moved  a 
vote  of  thanks  to  Sir  Robert  Napier,  the  trium- 
phantly successful   General  who   had  overcome 

276 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon   Street 

indescribable  difficulties,  had  transported  the 
artillery  of  Europe  on  the  elephants  of  Asia  across 
the  deserts  and  the  precipices  of  Africa,  and  had 
planted  the  standard  of  St.  George  on  the  moun- 
tains of  Rasselas.  How  during  this  discussion  Mr. 
Lowe  could  not  prevent  his  wrath  and  disgust  from 
showing  themselves  in  the  expression  of  his  face 
and  the  movements  of  his  body  was  described 
at  the  time  by  all  the  picturesque  reporters  of 
the  day. 

Disraeli's  crowning  triumph  over  his  fallen  foe 
came  a  year  or  two  later.  Speaking  on  the  Royal 
Titles  Bill,  Lowe  had  stated  as  a  fact  of  which 
he  had  personal  knowledge  that  Queen  Victoria 
in  the  near  past  had  more  than  once  wished  her 
Government  to  confer  upon  her  the  Imperial  style, 
and  till  Mr.  Disraeli,  he  continued,  all  the 
ministers  thus  applied  to  had  refused.  At  the 
moment  Disraeli  said  nothing.  A  few  days  later, 
however,  he  stated  that  the  allegation  was  too 
serious  to  pass  by  in  silence,  and  he  had  there- 
fore humbly  requested  his  Sovereign  to  tell  him 
whether  there  was  anything  in  the  story.  He 
now  had  the  honour  of  informing  the  House  that 
from  beginning  to  end  it  was  pure  fiction. 

After  this  the  future  Lord  Sherbrooke  desisted 

from  public  provocations  of  the  man  who,  on  the 

balance,  had  so  much  the  best  of  the  encounters. 

277 


Great  Victorians 

His  private  depreciation  of  his  enemy  continued, 
and  was  expressed  as  bitterly  as  usual  at  Mr. 
Jowett's  Balliol  dinner-table ;  some  rhetorical 
ability  formed  on  that  occasion  the  one  merit 
allowed  by  the  censor.  No  English  more  pure 
or  better  balanced  was  ever  heard  in  the  House 
of  Commons  than  that  of  Robert  Lowe  at  his  best. 
It  was  the  true  Oxford  diction,  the  English  of 
Jowett,  of  Newman,  of  Matthew  Arnold,  and 
Froude. 

Most  of  his  important  speeches  in  the  Commons 
were  listened  to  by  the  present  writer.  They 
were  marked  by  the  same  logical  sequence  of  pure 
thought,  of  varied,  mostly  first-hand,  knowledge, 
and  occasional  metaphor,  focused  upon  the  suc- 
cessive divisions  of  his  address.  Yet  if  action  be 
the  first,  second,  and  third  thing  in  oratory, 
Robert  Lowe,  Lord  Sherbrooke,  was  not  an 
orator.  He  used  no  gesture,  standing,  in  every 
part  of  his  body,  motionless  as  a  statue.  My 
relative  Charles  Wordsworth,  Bishop  of  St. 
Andrew's,  Headmaster  of  Harrow  in  1836,.  knew 
from  his  successors  the  school  tradition  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  steadily  standing- 
Reading  rapidly,  all  at  ease, 
Pages  out  of  Demosthenes.^ 


Mr.  Bowen's  Harrow  Songs. 
278 


St.   Mary's,   Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

The  Bishop  had  gone  with  me  one  day  on  a  visit 
to  St.  Stephen's.  Watching  Lowe,  he  could  not 
but  be,  he  said,  reminded  of  him  by  the  then 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer's  rapidity  of  utter- 
ance and  automaton-like  lack  of  animation. 
Every  physical  aid  )to  oratory  was  eschewed .  The 
whole  performance  impressed  every  one  who  wit- 
nessed it  as  a  purely  intellectual  effort,  splendidly 
executed  by  one  whose  chief  anxiety  appeared  to 
be  that  it  seemed  he  should  not  see  his  audience. 
**  Seem  "  Lwrite  purposely,  because  no  one  could 
exactly  tell  who  or  what,  whether  in  public  or 
private,  were  within  the  range  of  Lord  Sher- 
brooke's  vision.  He  never,  it  is  certain,  read 
anything  "rapidly  all  at  ease."  One  of  the 
parlourmaid's  or  lady's-maid's  duties  beneath  the 
Lowe  roof  in  Lowndes  Square,  or  at  "  Warling- 
ham,"  in  the  Surrey  hills,  was  to  read  aloud  to  the 
master.  On  occasion  she  may  have  become  his 
amanuensis  for  his  Times  leaders.  These,  how- 
ever, were  generally,  if  not  always,  dictated  to 
his  devoted  wife,  who  had  every  personal  recom- 
mendation except  that  of  beauty.  This  deficiency 
did  not  diminish  her  husband's  affection,  and 
caused  one  of  Disraeli's  wickedest  jokes.  "  De- 
lightful," said  some  one,  *'  to  notice  Lowe's  fond- 
ness for  his  very  plain  wife."  "  Yes,"  came  the 
rejoinder,  "  but  then,  he  can  never  see  her,  and 
perhaps  never   did   see  her  at  all." 

279 


Great  Victorians 

Appreciation  of  Lord  Sherbrooke's  unique  per- 
sonal flavour  and  social  gifts  belonged,  as  has 
been  said,  to  a  limited  set.  He  was,  however, 
less  unpopular  than  his  colleagues.  The  droop- 
ing shoulders,  crowned  by  the  white  head,  of 
the  rider  of  the  old  white  cob  in  Rotten  Row  or 
in  the  Surrey  lanes  had  becomie  as  much  of  an  in- 
stitution as  Thomas  Carlyle  on  his  "  Rosinante  " 
in  the  district  separating  Knightsbridge  from 
Putney.  The  ministerial  defeat  on  the  Irish 
University  Bill  in  the  March  of  1873  had  for  its 
sequel  the  outburst  of  strong  antipathy  against 
the  defeated  Government.  For  the  first  timei 
since  1728,  the  year  in  which  Gay  lampooned 
the  Walpole  Administration,  the  Cabinet  of  the 
day  was  held  up  to  ridicule  on  the  public  stage. 

On  March  5th,  the  day  fixed  for  the  Irish 
University  Bill's  second  reading,  "  The  Happy 
Land,"  at  the  Court  Theatre,  a  burlesque  of  the 
Gilbertian  fairy  drama,  "  The  Wicked  World," 
filled  the  stalls  of  the  little  Chelsea  playhouse. 
The  Society  audience  laughed,  as  they  had  never 
laughed  in  the  theatre  before,  at  the  presentations 
of  Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr.  Ayrton,  and  the  rest  of  the 
Cabinet  as  the  chief  characters  in  the  skit.  The 
Lord  Chamlberlain's  veto  only  increased  its  vogue. 
All  who,  like  myself,  saw  the  piece  several  times, 
were  struck  by  the  fact  that,  notwithstanding  the 

280 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

storm  over  his  match-tax,  there  were  fewer 
demonstrations  at  the  future  Lord  Sherbrooke's 
expense  than  in  the  case  of  any  of  the  other 
caricatures . 

Their  scholarship,  learning,  and  University- 
associations  excepted,  Mr.  Lowe  had  as  little  in 
common  with  Mr.  Gladstone  as,  years  afterwards, 
Mr.  Gladstone  himself  with  Mr.  Chamberlain. 
Both  men,  in  truth,  were  only  known  and 
thoroughly  at  their  ease  within  the  narrow  Hmits 
of  a  coterie  of  their  own.  It  would  have  been 
as  impossible  to  reduce  the  two  to  a  common 
social  denominator  as  to  harmonize  the  yellow - 
backed  novel  with  the  Greek  Fathers  or  the 
writings  of  Samuel  Butler  with  Palais  Royal 
opera  bouffe.  The  most  powerful  legislative  in- 
strument of  his  time,  Mr.  Gladstone  never  greatly 
enlarged  his  personal  following  beyond  an  occa- 
sional recruit  of  high  distinction  like  Henry 
Drummond,  who  wrote  "  Natural  Law  in  the 
Spiritual  World,"  and  who  delivered  lay  sermons 
to  a  fashionable  company  on  Sunday  afternoons 
at  Grosvenor  House.  I  have  heard  people  call 
the  Gladstonian  hospitalities,  whether  at  Downing 
Street  or  Hawarden,  formal  and  stiff.  They  were 
really  as  pleasant  as  could  be  expected ;  and  at 
his  London  dinner-table  the  host,  if  at  his  best, 
delighted  all.      He  had  one  of  his  most  regular 

281 


Great  Victorians 

guests  in  the  memorable  O'Gorman,  whose  con- 
versations about  the  social  Ireland  of  other  days 
resembled  a  new  chapter  in  "  Sir  Jonah  Barring- 
ton."  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  illustrated  in  an 
occasional  anecdote  some  of  the  differences  be- 
tween the  social  talk  of  the  present  and  the  past. 
**  Certainly,"  said  Dr.  Magee,  then  Bishop  of 
Peterborough,  "  men  have  largely  dropped  the 
habit  of  swearing."  Here  some  one  suggested 
that  Colonel  Napier  Sturt,  who  had  been  at  St. 
Stephen's  with  Gladstone,  might  be  considered 
an  exception.  "  I  mean,"  said  the  host,  '*  that  at 
Cabinet  meetings  and  on  other  such  occasions 
swearing  has  practically  gone  out.  The  Duke 
of  Cumberland  within  my  recollection  was  very 
anxious  to  stimulate  Archbishop  Rowley's  opposi- 
tion to  a  proposal  for  abolishing  Church  rates. 
Now  Howley  was  the  meekest  of  men,  and  as 
circumspect  in  his  speech  as  a  Primate  ought  to 
be.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland  hoped  he  would 
attend  this  particular  meeting  of  peers.  Not 
seeing  him^  he  went  out,  presently  returning  quite 
radiant.  '  My  lords,'  he  broke  out,  *  it's  all 
right.      I've  seen  the  Archbishop,   and  he   says 

he'll  be  d d  to  all  eternity  if  he  doesn't  oppose 

the  Bill  tooth  and  nail.'  " 

"  I    wanted,"    Mr.    Gladstone    once    told    me, 

*'  after   getting   an   All   Souls'   fellowship,   to   be 

282 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

a  clergyman."  The  already  mentioned  Bishop 
Wordsworth,  when  a  student  of  Christ  Churchy 
had  at  the  same  time  for  his  pupils  Henry  Edward 
Manning,  of  Balliol,  and  William  Ewart  Glad- 
stone, of  the  House.  "  Both,"  in  his  own  words, 
*'  were  visibly  resolved  on  turning  all  their  oppor- 
tunities to  the  best  account.  The  future  Cardinal 
deserved  the  highest  honours  afterwards  gained 
by  him  in  the  classical  schools  ;  the  papers  set  on 
that  occasion  suited  exactly,  the  result  being  that 
his  first-class  was  one  of  the  very  best  on  record. 
He  had  not,  however,  the  future  Prime  Minister's 
passionate  energy  for  work  of  every  kind,  and 
would  sometimes  come  to  my  rooms  a  good  deal 
after  the  appointed  hour .  Gladstone,  on  the  other 
hand,  always  came  before  it.  When  I  entered 
I  invariably  found  him  busy  writing  down  what 
turned  out  to  be  points  in  his  books  that  he  wished 
specially  to  discuss.  No  one  could  be  more  sur- 
prised than  myself  when  I  heard  of  his  decision 
not  to  take  Orders  but  to  go  into  politics." 

As  regards  the  career  he  actually  adopted,  the 
first  Lord  Goschen,  after  nearly  twenty  years* 
Cabinet  experience  of  Gladstone  as  chief  or 
colleague,  said  to  me  :  "  No  man,  in  my  opinion, 
ever  more  completely  mistook  his  vocation.  A 
•born  poet  and  a  born  religious,  he  was  meant 
by     nature     to     found     Churches     rather     than 

283 


Great  Victorians 

destroy  them,  and  to  exercise  his  Uterary  gifts  on 
the  borderland  separating  theology  from  meta- 
physics and  poetry."  Certainly  in  whatever  com- 
pany he  moved  (and  the  present  writer  saw  him 
frequently  among  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men, 
and  women  too),  Mr.  Gladstone  apparently  never 
tried  to  divest  himself  of  the  hauteur  that  was  the 
note  of  the  aristocratic  high  Tory  school,  to  which 
by  birth  and  training  he  had  belonged,  nor  of 
the  donnishness  that  marked  the  ecclesiastics  and 
the  ecclesiastically  minded  laymen  conspicuous 
in  the  Oxford  Anglicans  of  the  thirties.  This 
was  called  the  Oriel  manner.  When  some  one 
had  ventured  in  a  devout  undertone  to  call  the 
Oriel  common-room  of  those  days  like  heaven, 
an  irreverent  acquaintance  observed,  "  Surely 
they  can't  be  as  bad  upstairs  as  all  that." 

The  spiritual  fervour  of  the  man  penetrated 
and  kindled  the  Oxford  crust,  communicating  its 
glow  to  those  with  whom  he  talked  on  such  high 
subjects,  and  causing  C.  H.  Spurgeon  to  say  that 
no  one  could  be  long  in  his  company  without  a 
consciousness  of  conversing  with  one  who  could 
"  see  the  King  in  His  beauty  and  behold  the  land 
that  is  very  far  off."  ^  In  general  society,  most 
to  be  appreciated,  Gladstone  should  have  been 
met  at   the   late    Lady    Strangford's,    in    Chapel 

^  Isa.  xxxiii.  17. 
284 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

Street,  Park  Lane,  exchanging  views  on  Church 
or  State  with  Lord  Camoys,  comparing  notes 
on  the  smaller  nationalities  of  the  world  with 
Lord  Shaftesbury,  or  not  shrinking  from  an  occa- 
sional wit  combat  with  his  hostess,  one  of  the  very 
best  talkers  then  living,  quite  unsurpassed  in  the 
knack  of  summing  up  well-known  men  and  their 
work  as  well.  A  propos  of  A.  H.  Layard's 
Nineveh  excavations  she  said  in  her  softest  tones  : 
**  With  firmans  from  the  Sultan  and  several  pick- 
axes one  is  sure  to  find  out  a  good  deal." 

His  most  genial  moods  showed  themselves  to 
the  best  advantage  as  Lord  and  Lady  Aberdeen's 
guest,  both  in  Grosvenor  Square  and  at  Dollis 
Hill.  At  the  latter  I  saw  him,  together  with  Sir 
Andrew  Clark,  for  the  last  time  during  the 
eighties.  Lady  Aberdeen,  seated  under  a  tree, 
was  preparing  refreshments  for  the  school -chil- 
dren she  was  entertaining.  As  we  walked  up  and 
down  the  gravel  path  the  great  man  seemed  to  be 
getting  restless.  At  last  he  turned  round  to  the 
doctor,  nearly  of  his  own  age,  with  the  words, 
*'  Let  us  run  a  race  to  the  tea-table."  Off  the 
patriarchs  started,  the  G.O.M.  winning  by  a  short 
head.  Mr.  Gladstone's  eagerness  and  Mrs.  Glad- 
stone's devotion  to  good  works  brought  them 
sometimes  into  strange  companionships,  and  set 
many  tongues  idly  wagging.     The  second  Lord 

285 


Great  Victorians 

Greville,  when  Gladstone's  private  secretary,  was 
walking  home  with  him  late  one  night  when  he 
lived  in  Harley  Street ;  not  far  from  the  house 
they  were  accosted  by  a  poorly  clad,  hollow -faced 
outcast  woman .  "  Come  with  me  inside,"  said  Mr. 
Gladstone,  '*  and  I  will  speak  to  you."  As  they 
entered  the  door  the  private  secretary  murmured, 
"  What  would  Mrs.  Gladstone  say  to  this?  "  '*  I 
am,"  was  the  reply,  "  this  moment  going  to  fetch 
her."  The  lady  came  ;  presently  some  hot  soup 
made  its  appearance .  Shortly  af terwiards  the  poor 
wanderer  of  the  streets,  supplied  with  all  neces- 
saries, was  placed  beneath  a  roof,  with  at  least 
a  chance  of  beginning  a  new  life. 

The  anecdotes  about  Gladstone's  great  rival, 
Disraeli,  were  more  generally  apocryphal  than 
those  in  which  the  Liberal  leader  figured.  Three 
men  who  at  times  lived  more  or  less  intimately 
with  Disraeli  survived  into  the  twentieth  century. 
Thomas  H amber,  once  editor  of  the  Standard y 
subsequently  of  the  shortlived  Hour,  when 
broken  in  fortune  and  health  found  a  retreat  in 
the  Hughenden  neighbourhood.  Here  he  was 
discovered  and  relieved  by  the  lord  of  the  manor. 
But  after  the  death  of  his  two  private  secretaries 
(Lord  Barrington  and  Lord  Rowton),  Lord 
Glenesk,  Lord  Burnham,  and  Lord  Ronald 
Sutherland  Gower  remained  the  only  three  who 

286 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

had  possessed  with  him  anything  like  long-stand- 
ing intimacy.  In  the  obscurity  of  my  extreme 
youth  the  fifth  Lord  Stanhope,  the  Maecenas  as 
well  as  historian  of  the  day,  gave  me  the  chance 
of  meeting  some  famous  men  at  his  dinner -table, 
Disraeli  among  them.  The  latter  had  been  told 
that  Thackeray  would  be  among  his  fellow- 
guests.  "Then,"  was  the  reply,  *' I  cannot 
come."  Disraeli,  as  is  well  known,  never  forgave 
the  aiihhor  of  *'  Vanity  Fair  "  the  Punch  burlesque 
as  "  Codlingsby "  of  his  first  great  novel. 
"Well,"   said  Stanhope,   "I   will  ask  Dickens." 

Disraeli  never  became  a  votary  of  that  novelist. 
His  own  colleague  and  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer.  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  an  ardent 
Dickensian,  often  tried,  but  always  unsuccess- 
fully, to  inoculate  him  with  a  taste  for 
*'  Pickwick."  At  the  Stanhope  dinner,  however, 
he  found  in  Dickens  the  writer  whom,  many 
years  earlier,  he  had  met  at  Lady  Blessington's 
and  termed  "a  delightful  man." 

The  first  place  in  Lord  Beaconsfield's  estimate 
of  contemporary  authors  was  always  reserved  for 
Matthew  Arnold.  Some  words  or  ideas  of  the 
creator  of  Arminius,  rather  than  anything  he  had 
ever  heard  from  Sir  Francis,  afterwards  Lord 
Leighton,  formed  the  intellectual  germ  that  even- 
tually grew  into  the  Gaston  Phoebus  of  "  Lothair." 

287 


Great  Victorians 

None  of  these  writings  when,  many  years  later,  I 
heard  him  talk  on  such  subjects,  seemed  to  in- 
terest him  so  much  as  Mr.  W.  H.  Mallock's 
**  New  Republic."  Our  hostess,  Mrs.  Singleton, 
afterwards  Lady  Currie,  had  hoped  on  this  occa- 
sion to  present  the  author  to  the  great  man. 
Something  at  first  rendered  it  doubtful  whether 
Disraeli  would  be  present.  Mr.  Mallock,  there- 
fore, never  came,  but,  almost  unexpectedly,  Dis- 
raeli did,  and  talked  a  good  deal  to  the  lady  of  the 
house  about  the  absent  author  and  other  kindred 
subjects.  "I  place,"  he  said,  '*  the  *  New  Re- 
public '  in  a  genuinely  original  trio,  appearing 
within  something  like  half  a  century.  First  in 
order  of  titne  came  my  own  *  Popanilla  'in  1828; 
then  "  (looking  towards  Lawrence  Oliphant,  who 
happened  to  be  of  the  company)  "  '  Piccadilly  '  ; 
and  now,  1877,  the  '  New  Republic'  With  these 
exceptions,  in  that  department  of  satire  and  fan- 
tasy to  which  they  belonged,  I  cannot  recall  any 
other  works  owing  so  little  in  idea  and  execution 
to  other  writers  of  the  time." 

Lord  Beaconsfield's  more  short  and  sententious 
condensations  of  experience,  wisdom,  and  wit 
were  mostly  reserved  for  a  tete-a-tete,  generally 
with  some  lady  of  about  his  own  age .  Such  were 
his  aphorisms  treasured  and  reproduced  by  Mrs. 
Reynolds  as  follows  :  *'  I  hope,"  she  had  casually 

288 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,   to  Curzon   Street 

said,  "you  are  quite  well,  Lord  Beaconsfield  ?  " 
"  No  one,"  came  in  solemn  tones  the  reply,  "  is 
quite  well;  I  am  tolerably  well,  thank  you." 
The  only  books  that  really  amused  him  were  of 
the  same  order  as  his  father's  **  Curiosities,"  etc. 
**  As  for  novels,"  was  his  deliverance,  **  when  I 
want  to  read  one  I  write  one  "  ;  and  again,  "  Yes, 
I  confess  to  being  a  flatterer  ;  people  like  it ; 
but  in  the  case  of  royalty  you  must  lay  it  on  with 
a  trowel."  He  had  passed  the  night  beneath  the 
roof  of  one  of  his  strongest  supporters  in  the 
Midlands.  Before  he  left  the  next  morning  the 
host  brought  forward  his  two  little  boys,  with  the 
request  that  the  departing  guest  would  say  to  each 
something  which  he  might  remember.  "  My 
boy,"  were  the  words  vouchsafed  to  the  elder, 
**  never  you  ask  in  going  through  life  who  wrote 
the  '  Letters  of  Junius,'  or  they  will  think  you  a 
bore."  "  And  you,"  the  younger  was  next  told, 
"  never  want  to  know  about  the  *  man  in  the  iron 
mask,'  or  they'll  think  you  a  bigger  bore  than 
your  brother." 

His  political  and  literary  work  apart,  Disraeli 
must  be  remembered  as  the  most  magnificent  type 
and  forerunner  of  nineteenth-century  Semitism's 
social  triumphs.  Two  great  ladies  chiefly  minis- 
tered to  his  enjoyment  in  the  later  days.  Of 
these   the    superb    Lady   Chesterfield,   like   Lady 

289  T 


Great  Victorians 

Bradford,  had  not  known  him  during  his  strug- 
ghng  period.  Her  sister,  however,  the  not  less 
beautiful  and  stately  Lady  Anson,  had  believed  in 
and  backed  him  from  the  first.  "  No  genius  for 
practical  politics  !  "  she  had  exclaimed  when  some 
one  sneered  at  the  "  dandified  Jew."  '*  Why, 
did  he  not  invent  George  Bentinck,  who,  before 
he  knew  '  the  Jew,'  had  scarcely  ever  opened  his 
mouth  at  Westminster?  "  And  "  the  Jew  "  lived 
to  win  full  satisfaction  for  the  social  slights  placed 
upon  him  by  the  Lennox,  Bentinck,  and  Stanley 
gang. 

In  1870  the  party  managers  had  fixed  for  Whit 
Monday  the  Crystal  Palace  dinner  of  Conserva- 
tive Associations,  memorable  for  Disraeli's  decla- 
ration in  favour  of  an  Imperial  Customs  Union. 
The  Duke  of  Abercorn,  with  some  other  grand 
Transparencies  and  great  Panjandrums,  wanted 
the  day  changed.  "Don't,"  the  great  man  said 
quite  sharply,  "  talk  to  me  of  your  dukes,  but 
arrange  as  it  was  decided." 

In  his  sorrows  especially  he  turned  instinc- 
tively for  comfort  to  those  of  his  own  race. 
"  Circumstances,"  he  once  said  to  Mrs.  Singleton, 
"  have  taken  me  much  away  from  home  and  com- 
pelled me  to  talk  a  good  deal ;  but  Nature  in- 
tended me  not  only  for  a  silent  but  a  domestic 
man."     Part  of  the  secret  of  his  devotion  to  his 

290 


St.   Mary's,  Winton,  to  Curzon  Street 

wife  was  that,  in  Baroness  Lionel  Rothschild's 
words,  '*  she  always  understood  and  never  bored 
him."  Her  wealth  made  him  independent  of 
office,  just  as,  even  at  the  outset,  his  patrimony, 
even  without  the  addition  to  it  from  his  pen,  might 
with  economy  have  sufficed  for  all  his  wants. 
Nothing  deepened  his  gratitude  to  his  wife  more 
than  the  comfortable  home  with  which  she  en- 
dowed him  at  Grosvenor  Gate,  bringing,  as  it  did, 
within  his  reach  the  hospitalities  that  were  so 
useful  in  holding  together  the  different  sections 
of  his  followers.  During  this  year  I  once  heard 
him  say,  **  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  entertain- 
ing more  than  five  hundred  of  my  friends."  The 
State  dinners  were  well  done  and  the  wine  was 
first-rate.  Except  on  such  occasions  wine  and 
cookery  were  of  the  simplest  and  cheapest,  and 
after  dark  no  gaslights  burned  in  the  hall.  He 
felt  the  cold  almost  painfully.  "  The  only  time," 
said  to  me  Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff,  *'  that  I 
ever  saw  him  burst  out  into  a  real  fit  of  rage 
was  during  a  not  really  severe  winter  at  Bourne- 
mouth. I  had  suggested  his  coming  there  for  its 
mildness.  On  calling  at  the  hotel  I  found  him 
furious  because  he  could  not  get  the  tempera- 
ture of  his  room  up  to  sixty  degrees.  As  I 
went  out  the  manager  stopped  me  to  say,  *  Lord 
Beaconsfield  told  me  he  considered  the  house, 

291 


Great  Victorians 

the  place,   and  everything  to   do  with  them  an 
imposture.'* 

Last  scene  of  all :  In  the  final  sickness  Sir 
Richard  Quain  had  for  his  colleague  a  doctor 
recommended  many  years  earlier  by  Disraeli's 
then  private  secretary,  Ralph  Earle.  This  was 
the  happily  still  surviving  Dr.  Joseph  Kidd ;  he 
saw  the  signs  of  the  approaching  end  about 
2  a.m. ;  he  imparted  his  fears  16  Lord  Rowton, 
who  summoned  Quain.  Those  three  stood  or  sat 
by  the  dying  man  till  all  was  over.  During  the 
last  hour  or  two  there  was  very  little  conscious- 
ness, and  few  words  of  any  kind  came  from  the 
lips.  Actually  the  last— I  had  it  directly  from 
Quain  himself— were,  "  I  am  oppressed." 


292 


CHAPTER    IX 
A   CAMBRIDGE   HOUSE    HENCHMAN   AND   ORACLE 

Abraham  Hayward  and  the  French  gentleman  on  "  parasites  " — 
The  funeral  service  and  mourners — At  Blundell's  School, 
Tiverton — Articled  to  an  Ilchester  solicitor — His  lineage 
and  ancestors — The  lady's  opinion  of  Hayward:  "What  a 
horrid  man  !  " — Disliked  by  Disraeli — Starts  the  Law 
Magazine — Thiers  calls  on  Hayward — Their  conversation 
about  the  alliance  which  was  "  hopeless  " — Bismarck  and 
the  Kiel  Canal — In  the  Lyme  Pathway  case — Roebuck 
excludes  him  from  the  Benchers  of  the  Temple — "  Hayward, 
Hayward,  come  back!" — Violet  Fane,  impatient  at  first,  but 
apologetic  afterwards — Melbourne  on  "  a  big  balance  at  the 
banker's  " — At  his  death-bed — Kinglake  with  him  to  the  last. 

About  the  middle  of  the  Victorian  era  an  intelli- 
gent little  French  gentleman,  paying  his  first  visit 
to  London,  was  eagerly  investigating  our  social 
polity.  He  had  found  his  cicerone  in  the 
memorably  rase  and  re  panda  Abraham  Hayward. 
That  accomplished  belles -lettrist,  barrister,  man  of 
the  world,  and  tame  cat  to  the  great  Whig  and 
Liberal  houses  of  his  time,  was  better  qualified 
than  any  mlan  then  living  to  initiate  a  stranger 
into    the     innermost    mysteries     of     polite    life. 

293 


Great  Victorians 

*'  Just  below  the  highest  and  most  aristocratic 
classes,"  explained  this  mentor  to  his  Tele- 
machus,  "  are  certain  men  who,  while  not  born 
of  kin  to  the  purple,  live  with  the  great  ones  of 
the  earth  on  terms  of  intimacy,  and  are  always 
welcome  at  their  dinner -tables  or  in  their  draw- 
ing-rooms." The  stranger's  face  at  once 
brightened.  '*  I  understand  perfectly,"  he  said. 
'*  These  are  what  you  call  *  parasites.'  "  It  was 
an  apt  remark,  though  it  might  have  given  offence 
had  the  gentleman  to  whom  it  was  addressed 
cared  to  take  it  personally,  because  Society  then 
possessed  no  more  typical  member  of  the  class 
than  himself. 

The  best  idea  of  Hayward's  place  in  the  great 
world  during  more  than  half  a  century  is  given 
by  the  representative  names  of  those  who,  on 
February  6,  1885,  attended  the  memorial  service 
in  St.  James's  Church,  Piccadilly.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, then  Prime  Minister,  placed  a  wreath  of 
snowdrops,  fresh  from  Hawarden,  on  the  pall. 
Near  him  were  two  of  his  Cabinet  colleagues, 
several  of  those  who  had  held  high  office  in  other 
Administrations,  the  President  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  delegates  of  all  the  learned  societies, 
the  editors  of  The  Times  and  of  all  the  great 
weekly,  monthly,  or  quarterly  reviews.  Among 
historians  there  were  J.  A.  Eroude,  W.  E.  H. 

294 


Cambridge  House  Henchman  and  Oracle 

Lecky,  and  his  lifelong  and  closest  intimate, 
A.  W.  Kinglake.  The  muses  had  sent  the  best 
known  after  Tennyson  and  least  understood 
of  nineteenth-century  poets,  Robert  Browning. 
Society  agreed  to  see  in  Hayward  the  habitue  of 
its  favourite  resorts,  the  most  pointed  as  well  as 
the  sharpest  conversationist  of  the  time,  a  good 
deal  of  the  epicure,  and  not  a  little  of  the  cynic. 
All,  or  most  of  this,  he  no  doubt  was.  He  had 
also  other  qualities,  moral  as  well  as  mental— a 
genuine  determination  to  get  at  the  truth,  a  hatred 
of  pretence  and  sham,  a  consuming  earnestness  in 
whatever  he  took  up.  These  attributes  made 
Hayward  a  type,  not  so  much,  perhaps,  of  his 
time,  as  of  all  that  was  most  distinctive  of  the 
English  temper  itself.  Bom  into  the  class  of 
smaller  landed  gentry,  he  lost  nothing,  but  porob- 
ably  gained  much,  from  not  going  to  a  great 
public  school  or  university,  but  to  BlundelFs 
School,  Tiverton,  a  "  West  Country  Winchester," 
and  very  shortly  afterwards  beginning  the  appren- 
ticeship for  his  career.  The  associations  of  his 
Wiltshire  birthplace,  Wilton,  near  Salisbury,  had 
formed,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  a  little  educa- 
tion in  themselves.  A  Somersetshire  mother  of 
refined  tastes,  a  well-to-do  uncle,  her  brother, 
and  a  little  later  the  run  of  a  really  good  library, 
secured  him  the  intellectual  training  and  oppor- 

295 


Great  Victorians 

tunities  calculated  to  give  him,  in  the  most  useful 
form,  the  varied  culture  and  experience  which 
constituted  his  working  capital  when,  coming  to 
London  in  1824,  he  began  keeping  his  terms 
at  the  Inner  Temple,  where  he  was  duly  called 
eight  years  afterwards.  '*  My  father's  people," 
Hay  ward  once  said  to  me  in  one  of  his  autobio- 
graphical humours,  '*  the  Hillcotts  of  Wiltshire, 
once  had  a  really  good  estate,  which  ought  to 
have  made  me  independent  for  life  ;  and  all  that 
reading  could  give  I  got  beneath  the  roof  of  the 
Ilchester  solicitor  to  whom  I  w^as  apprenticed. 
I  got,  however,  more  than  this.  For  the  good 
parents,  and  especially  the  extraordinarily  gifted 
mother  of  my  lifelong  friend  Kinglake,  made 
their  house  in  the  Taunton  district,  called 
*  Wilton,'  my  second  home." 

"  It  was,"  Hay  ward  went  on,  "  something  per- 
haps to  have  for  one's  ancestors  people  who,  like 
these  Hillcott  Haywards,  had  the  pas  of  all  the 
parishioners  in  entering  church.  It  was  a  good 
deal  more  to  live  in  my  Wiltshire  birthplace,, 
under  the  very  shadow  of  the  Pembroke  man- 
sion, in  a  different  way  as  much  an  historical 
monument  as  Stonehenge  itself.  In  the  picture- 
gallery  of  Wilton  House,  as  a  child  of  eight  or 
ten,  I  first  got  the  idea  that  English  history, 
properly  looked  at,  would  be  found  only  another 

296 


Cambridge  House  Henchman  and  Oracle 

and  longer  corridor  of  portraits.  Fitting  on  my 
own  head  the  cap  once  worn  by  Charles  I  when 
he  slept  at  *  Wilton  '  on  his  way  to  Carisbrooke, 
I  seemed  to  imbibe  some  of  the  old  cavalier's 
spirit,  making  me  a  high  Tory  till  I  came  to  years 
of  discretion,  as  all  my  elders  and  betters  on  both 
sides  were,  and  more  particularly  my  Taunton 
uncle,  Richard. I  By  first  sending  rne  to  Blun dell's 
School  at  Tiverton,  and  then  to  the  Ilchester 
attorney's  office,  he  put  me  in  the  way  of 
getting  exactly  that  kind  of  knowledge  which 
stood  me  in  better  stead  than  had  I  gone  with  my 
friend  Kinglake,  as  both  he  and  his  good  mother 
wished,  to  Eton  first  and  Cambridge  afterwards. 
The  Wilton,  family  also  were  my  first  patrons. 
Sidney  Herbert's  introductions  got  me  on  to  the 
staff  of  the  Peelite  Morning  Chronicle.  Together 
with  a  tolerably  good  knowledge  of  German  and 
French,  they  procured  me,  when  I  was  abroad, 
quite  a  cosmopolitan  acquaintance ;  for,  from 
his   partly   Russian   parentage  .2      Russians,  then 

'  From  that  relative's  patronymic  Hay  ward  derived  his 
Christian  name,  Abraham.  That,  he  always  insisted,  was  Jewish 
only  in  sound,  and  meant  etymologically  "  auburn."  Abraham, 
indeed,  is,  or  used  to  be,  a  not  uncommon  Somerset  surname, 
but  Abraham  Hayward's  thick  lips  and  Jewish  nose  led  many 
people  into  the  pardonable  error  of  crediting  him  with  the 
Hebrew  lineage  that  he  always  vehemently  disclaimed. 

^  Sidney  Herbert's  father  was  the  eleventh  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
and  his  mother  was  Count  Woronzow's  daughter. 

297 


Great  Victorians 

great  personages  in  all  continental  society,  looked 
upon  Sidhey  Herbert  as  one  of  themselves." 

The  qualities  that  gave  Hay  ward's  literary  gifts 
a  place  among  the  personal  forces  of  his  time 
were  moral  as  well  as  intellectual.  His  genuine- 
ness, intensity,  abhorrence  of  trickery  and  im- 
posture, of  falsehood  and  sham  ;  his  dauntless 
determination  to  arrive,  in  every  case,  at  the  facts 
himself,  and  to  prevent  others  being  misled  by 
phrases,  "wrung  many  withers."  "  Hay  ward," 
said  a  well-known  chaperon  to  her  charge,  '*  will 
do  you  vehement  justice  if  you  are  wrongly 
attacked,  but  will  show  you  no  mercy  if  you 
make  a  slip."  "  What  a  horrid  man  !  "  was  the 
not  unnatural  exclamation.  Horrid  or  not,  she 
well  knew  he  had,  as  things  then  were,  to  be  pro- 
pitiated. "  Professional  beauties,"  indeed,  had 
not  at  this  time  come  in.  "  Beauty  parties,"  with 
whose  arrangement  Hayward  had  much  to  do, 
were  in  great  vogue,  and  brought  him  requests 
for  invitation  cards  ;  he  granted  none  of  these 
unless  he  considered  the  aspirant  came  up  to 
the  proper  standard,  not  only  of  good  looks,  but 
of  good  company. 

As  for  men,  Hayward  was  engaged  in  some- 
thing like  a  lifelong  warfare  with  only  two— 
Bernal  Osborne,  a  rival  conversationist  he  called 
too   flippant,    and   Disraeli    (Lord   Beaconsfield), 

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whom  he  thought  an  impostor,  and  who  cordially 
reciprocated  his  antipathy.  For  Hay  ward  had 
been  the  first  to  expose,  in  the  Morning 
Chronicle,  the  twofold  plagiarism  of  Disraeli's 
funeral  panegyric  on  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
First  the  English  speaker  had  appropriated  the 
artistic  phrases  and  the  impressive  imagery  of 
Thiers'  eulogism  of  Marshal  St.  Cyr.  Secondly, 
he  had  not  read  that  oration  in  the  original 
French.  He  only  knew  of  it  from  Hayward's 
own  rendering  in  the  newspaper,  and  of  that 
version  he  adopted  the  actual  words .  Quite  apart 
from  this  incident,  Disraeli's  character  seemed  to 
Hay  ward  essentially  false,  just  as  Mr,  Glad- 
stone's, in  spite  of  all  his  mistakes,  had  in  it 
the  ring  of  truth. 

That  he  might  have,  as  the  psalmist  puts  it, 
the  tongue  and  also  *'  the  pen  of  a  ready  writer," 
he  found  an  opening  for  forensic  as  well  as  news- 
paper exercise.  He  made  himself  a  really  good 
lawyer  by  working  in  chambers  all  day.  He 
listened  most  evenings  of  the  week  to  the  masters 
of  debate  at  St.  Stephen's,  where  most  of  his 
spare  half-crowns  went  in  inducing  the  door- 
keepers to  give  him  a  good  place.  When  not 
there  he  practically  studied  the  art  of  addressing 
an  assemblage  or  convincing  a  jury  in  the  London 
Debating  Society,  then  frequented  in  their  extra- 

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Great  Victorians 

parliamentary  period  by  the  budding  orators,  the 
social  wits,  and  the  polidcal  philosophers  of  the 
time.  At  these  discussions  J.  A.  Roebuck  on 
the  Radical,  and  Hayward  on  the  Conservative, 
or  more  often  high  Tory,  side,  were  the  rival 
champions . 

After  being  called  to  the  Bar  in  1832,  a 
cleverly  planned  foreign  tour  made  him  almost 
as  much  of  a  personage  in  continental  society  as 
he  had  become  in  English.  He  just  missed 
Goethe,  but  he  lived  familiarly  with  Tieck  ;  to 
the  Countess  Hahn-Hahn  he  became  all  that  he 
afterwards  was  to  Lady  Waldegrave.  In  France 
he  struck  up  a  friendship  with  Thiers,  lasting  till 
his  death.  With  that  acquaintance  began  the 
constant  interchange  of  visits  and  hospitalities 
between  English  men  of  letters  and  the  intellec- 
tual lights  of  the  Orleanist  monarchy  that  during 
much  of  the  nineteenth  century's  first  half 
annexed  certain  more  or  less  distinguished  houses 
on  both  sides  of  the  Channel  to  a  single  Anglo- 
French  set ;  its  best  known  members  in  France 
being  Thiers  and  Tocqueville,  in  this  country 
Henry  Reeve,  Kinglake,  A.  H.  Layard,  and  Hay- 
ward.  A  further  friendly  link  of  intellectual 
union  between  the  two  nations  forecast,  and  even 
prepared  the  way  for,  the  Entente  of  our  own 
times.     This  link  was  forged  by  Hayward  in  the 

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Law  Magazine,  whose  pages  brought  together 
the  chief  jurists  on  both  sides  of  the  Channel. 
The  Franco-Prussian  War  showed  the  import- 
ance attached,  at  least  in  France,  to  this  inter- 
national freemasonry.  Just  before  the  investment 
of  Paris  in  1870,  Thiers,  coming  to  England  on 
a  futile  quest  for  an  alliance,  went  to  Hayward 
directly  he  reached  London,  and  sounded  his  old 
friend  on  the  possibility  of  the  Gladstone  Govern- 
ment supporting  France.  "The  idea,"  at  once 
said  Hayward,  "is  quite  hopeless."  The  visitor 
then  began  to  argue  his  case  and  to  talk  about 
the  balance  of  power.  "  My  friend,"  Hayward 
broke  in,  "  put  all  that  stuff  out  of  your  head ; 
we  care  for  none  of  these  things." 

One  of  the  literary  events  between  i860  and 
1870,  watched  with  equal  interest  at  home  and 
abroad,  was  the  collection  of  Hayward's  essays 
into  the  volumes  which  have  not  yet  lost  all  their 
readers.  As  a  writer,  indeed,  his  European  repu- 
tation rested  on  the  translation  of  Faust  (1833). 
This  opened  to  him  the  Athenaeum,  and  coincided 
with  the  beginning  of  his  club  life  generally. 
He  was  among  the  earliest  instances  of  the  pen 
alone  proving  the  key  to  the  co-operative  cara- 
vanserais of  St.  James's  Street  and  Pall  Mall; 
and  he  headed  in  1845  the  list  of  a  hundred 
additional  members  taken  into  the  Carlton.     At 

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Great  Victorians 

the  Bar  his  conduct  of  the  great  Lyme  Pathway 
case  brought  him  many  briefs.  Roebuck's  oppo- 
sition prevented  his  becoming  a  Bencher  of  the 
Inner  Temple  but  not  his  receiving  *'  silk."  His 
old  Wilton  friends,  as  said  above,  found  him 
a  new  opening  in  the  Press,  on  the  reorganized 
Morning  Chronicle,  bought  by  Sidney  Herbert 
and  others  in  the  Free  Trade  and  Peelite  interest . 
Apart  from  his  pen  no  one  not  in  Parliament  had 
so  much  to  do  with  the  arrangements  for  the 
Coalition  Government  of  1852.  George  Smythe, 
the  original  of  "  Coningsby,"  had  just  lost  his 
seat  for  Canterbury  ;  he  was  chosen  by  Hayward 
for   his   chief   colleague   and  leader-writer. 

Delane  of  The  Times  was  unlike  Hayward  in 
being  not  a  learned,  a  specially  literary  man,  or, 
indeed,  anything  more  than  a  shrewd,  open- 
minded,  genial  citizen  of  the  world.  His  editorial 
dignity  did  jQot  give  him  more  influence  abroad 
and  at  home  than  Hayward  had  secured  by  his 
pen  and  tongue  alone.  The  future  Napoleon  III 
when  in  exile  in  London  had  consulted  the  leading 
spirit  of  the  Peelite  newspaper  as  a  kind  of  oracle . 
The  Taunton  uncle  from  whom  Hayward  had 
expectations,  calling  on  his  nephew  in  his  Temple 
chambers,  had  been  disgusted  a  few  years  earlier 
at  not  finding  him  deep  in  his  law  books  and 
briefs,  but  engaged  with  no  other  visitor  than 

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the  future  Napoleon  III,  the  worst  specimen, 
as  the  uncle  thought,  of  a  needy  foreign 
adventurer . 

Hayward's  crowning  triumph  as  a  practical 
politician  came  in  1864.  The  Prussian  policy  of 
dismembering  Denmark  by  the  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein  annexation,  coming,  as  it  did,  a  year  after 
the  Heir-apparent's  marriage  to  a  Danish  princes, 
had  raised  the  anti -German  feeling  to  fever 
height,  and  brought  us  to  the  verge  of  what  would 
have  been  a  popular  war.  On  July  23,  1863, 
Palmerston,  as  Prime  Minister,  had,  it  was 
thought,  committed  England  to  the  defence  of 
Denmark.  As  a  fact,  however,  the  public  sen- 
timent thus  voiced  proved  neither  general  nor 
deep.  After  a  few  weeks  or  even  days.  Parlia- 
ment and  Press  alike  endorsed  Lord  Stanley's 
words  that  a  European  war  for  the  sake  of  the 
Duchies  would  be  an  act,  not  only  of  impolicy 
but  of  insanity.  Full  of  all  this.  Hay  ward  called 
at  Cambridge  House  and  sat  with  Lady  Pal- 
merston till  her  lord  returned  from  the  Cabinet. 
The  minister  had  an  unusually  worn  and  weary 
look.  Hay  ward,  therefore,  after  a  few  words, 
rose  to  go,  and  left  the  room  ;  he  had  almost 
reached  the  bottom  of  the  stairs  leading  into  the 
hall  when  he  saw  the  master  of  the  house  leaning 
over   the   banisters   above.      He   next   heard   the 

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Great  Victorians 

voice,  "  Hay  ward,  Hay  ward,  come  back  !  "  The 
re-entering  visitor  then  encountered  the  question, 
*'  What  does  all  this  mean?  "  "  It  means,"  came 
the  answer,  "  that  none  of  you  seem  to  know  to 
what  you  are  heading."  "  Surely,"  rejoined  the 
minister,  "  Russell  and  I  have  not  gone  beyond 
a  moderate  and  rational  patriotism." 

Hayward  then  showed  his  careful  and  minute 
analysis  of  the  party  groups  and  individual 
opinions  on  both  sides,  conclusively .  proving  as 
they  did  the  progressive  formation  of  an  irresis- 
tible majority  against  war.  *'  If  you  doubt  me, 
ask  Brand  [the  ministerial  whip] .  Unless," 
he  wound  up,  "  you  execute  an  immediate  change 
of  front  you  will  be  out  in  a  week."  A  day  or 
two  later  Palmerston  went  down  to  the  House  and 
announced  the  "  right-about-face."  Hayward's 
influence  with  Palmerston  first,  as  with  Gladstone 
afterwards,  arose  not  only  from  his  thoroughly 
practical  turn  of  mind,  but  in  foreign  affairs  his 
accurate  information  about  the  personal  views  of 
statesmen  abroad  and  the  steady,  if  often  un- 
noticed, movement  of  feeling  and  conviction  at 
home .  As  regards  the  questions  now  looked  back 
upon,  he  almost  alone  among  Englishmen  knew 
that  Bismarck,  then  first  asserting  himself,  was 
bent  on  taking  the  Duchies  because  at  their  north- 
eastern corner  lay  the  harbour  of  Kiel.     This,  in 

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Prussian  hands,  would  facilitate  the  linking  by 
a  canal  of  the  Baltic  with  the  North  Sea. 

Hay  ward  delighted  in  the  reputation  of  being 
behind  the  political  scenes,  but  never  betrayed 
a  confidence  or  spoke  of  anything  for  which  he 
could  not  give  chapter  and  verse.  A  really  good 
judge  of  cookery  and  writer  on  it,  he  was  a 
diner-out,  not  as  a  gourmet  but  as  an  observer 
of  life  and  character.  "  Within  this  twelve- 
month," he  said  not  long  before  his  death,  "  I 
have  dined  away  from  home— that  is,  from  the 
club— only  three  times."  "Cold  beef,"  were  the 
last  words  I  ever  heard  him  utter  on  this  subject, 
"if  you  like,  but  good  claret  and  plenty  of  it." 
He  might  have  added,  "  And  no  talker  in  the  com- 
pany except  myself."  Failing  that  condition,  he 
did  not  show  to  advantage,  and  generally  re- 
mained silent  throughout  the  evening.  Hence 
he  could  not  socially  co-exist  with  "  a  dinner- 
table  and  smoking-room  hack  like  Bernal 
Osborne,  with  a  master  of  monologue  like 
Macaulay,  with  his  friend  Lord  Houghton,  a  fine 
intellect  spoiled  by  paradox,  or  with  Anthony 
Trollope,  whose  boisterous  ways  formed  a  striking 
contrast  to  his  own  delicate  dissections  of 
feminine  life  and  character."  Great  ladies 
like  the  hostesses  of  Strawberry  Hill  and 
Cambridge    House    consulted     Hayward    about 

305  u 


Great  Victorians 

their  parties.  Smaller  ones,  especially  if  of 
a  literary  turn,  were  afraid  of  him.  The 
highly  endowed  authoress  who  won  fame  as 
**  Violet  Fane  "  once  showed  a  little  impatience 
at  a  story  he  was  telling.  **  He  will  never  forgive 
you,"  said  a  bystander  ;  **  you,  who  wish  to  suc- 
ceed in  literature,  have  mortally  offended  the 
'  great  Cham  '  of  latter-day  criticism."  The  Mrs. 
Singleton  of  those  days  took  the  first  oppor- 
tunity of  apologizing,  and  received  from  him  a 
lecture  upon  the  satisfaction  natural  to  an  elderly 
man  from  perceiving  that  younger  men  and 
especially  younger  women  are  anxious  to  avoid 
wounding  his  susceptibilities. 

In  education  and  sympathies  belonging,  like 
Macaulay,  to  the  eighteenth  as  well  as  the  nine- 
teenth century,  Hayward  linked  by  his  personal 
experience  the  Melbournian  with  the  Palmerston- 
ian  period.  He  was  at  Brocket  with  Melbourne 
shortly  before  he  died  and  found  Mrs.  Norton 
in  the  room.     Presently  Melbourne  came  up  to 

him  and  said,  **  It  is  a  d d  good  thing  to  have 

a    big    balance    at    your    banker's,    and    it    is    a 

d d  bad  thing  when  a  woman  finds  it  out." 

Hayward  lodged  all  his  best-known  years  at 
8  St.  James's  Street  (beneath  the  roof  which  had 
once  sheltered  Byron).  Here,  ministered  to 
during  his  last  illness  chiefly  by  his  lifelong  friend 

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Kinglake,  he  died.  A  little  before  the  end  his 
sister  came  from  Dorsetshire,  to  take  him,  should 
he  recover,  to  her  house  at  Lyme  Regis  for  his 
convalescence.  "  Yes,"  Kinglake  tried  to  comfort 
his  friend,  ''  we  will  all  go  down  there  and  start 
soon."  "Why  delay  at  all?"  said  the  dying 
Hay  ward.  **  There  shall  be  no  delay,"  returned 
Kinglake.  "The  servants  are  packing  now,  and 
you  would  not  wish  to  hurry  them."  "  On  no 
account,"  murmured  the  dying  man,  "  hurry  the 
servants."  A  few  seconds  later  he  said  :  "  I  have 
no  fear  of  death  ;  I  have  some  faith  amd  I  know 
there  is  something  grand."  These  were  his  last 
words . 


307 


CHAPTER    X 

MID-VICTORIAN  TYPES  AND  FORCES  IN  CHURCH, 
STATE,  SOCIETY,  AND  LETTERS 

A.  W.  Kinglake  on  travelling  in  the  Crimea  then  and  now — The 
Eton  all-night  flogging — "  Eothen's  "  luck  in  coming  last — 
The  duel  that  was  not  fought — The  two  seconds  at  the 
Travellers'  Club — Lord  Tennyson's  social  mentor — The 
remnant  of  the  Cambridge  "  Apostles "  in  London — A 
distinguished  dinner-party  at  Dean  Milman's — The  host's 
stories  about  Frederick  the  Great — What  happens  when 
Bishops  meet — The  lifelong  social  competition  of  Bishop 
Wilberforce  and  Cardinal  Manning — Archbishop  Temple 
recalled  as  he  received  the  junior  clergy  in  his  Exeter 
days — Cardinal  Manning's  Riviera  in  Westminster — The 
Cardinal  on  Anglican  sermons  and  their  falling  off — How 
Lord    Macaulay    was    introduced    in    his    reading    to    a 

*'  Mr.    Sponge  " — " dark   and    smells  of  cheese  " — A 

reminiscence  of  "  Jorrocks's  Jaunts  and  Jollities " — The 
rise  and  progress  of  his  creator — Whyte-Melville  and  the 
Divorce  Court  phrase — Improved  on  by  George  Alfred 
Lawrence — How  "  Guy  Livingstone  "  was  written  and  with 
what  results — The  meeting  of  the  wits  in  Air  Street,  Regent 
Street — George  Lawrence's  rise,  progress,  character,  and 
work — Introduced  at  a  Richmond  dinner  to  Ouida  by 
Harry  Stone — A  visit  to  Francis  E.  Smedley,  the  author 
of  "  Frank  Fairlegh  "  and  "  Harry  Coverdale's  Courtship  " — 
How  the  nineteenth-century  masters  had  to  wait  till  the 
twentieth  for  their  full  influence  on  English  letters — J.  A. 
308 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

Froude  and  W.  E.  H.  Lecky  in  conversation  and  in 
print — Thorold  Rogers  and  the  scientific  historians — E.  A. 
Freeman's  musical  ri.  es  in  the  Mendip  lanes — Freeman, 
Browning,  and  "Kentish  Sir  Byng" — Bishop  Stubbs  in  the 
fallentis  semita  vttce — The  historian  as  editor — Froude's 
advice  to  his  "  Eraser "  writers — Dickens'  readings  in  the 
West — How  Thackeray  was  coming,  but  thought  better  of 
it — Dickens's  intellectual  legacy  to  his  family — Disraeli  and 
Dickens  on  the  eloquence  of  their  time — The  Dickens 
school — Edmund  Yates,  his  originality  and  his  obligations — 
Had  he  an  Egeria?— From  "Edmund"  to  "Henry"— 
"  Labby  "  as  raconteur  and  Radical — With  Grant- Duff  at 
Orleans  House — How  Don  Emelio  Castelar  visited  Galway 
and  heard  his  health  proposed  in  an  unknown  tongue. 

The  friend  who  has  just  been  seen  by  Abraham 
Hayward's  death-bed,  Hke  two  or  three  more  of 
his  old  Cambridge  set,  personified  the  militant 
patriotism  which  the  stirring  events  of  the  times 
had  helped  to  develop.  During  the  eighties 
Kinglake  had  heard  some  one  speak  of  travelling 
in  the  Crimea  with  a  special  permit  from  the 
Russian  Government.  "  In  my  time,"  Kinglake 
observed,  **  an  Englishman  went  wherever  he 
liked  in  the  Crimea  without  leave  at  all."  I  may 
recall  a  characteristic  display  of  his  electioneer- 
ing adroitness  on  the  Bridgwater  hustings,  wit- 
nessed during  childhood  by  myself.  '*  Eothen  " 
had  then  made  him  a  literary  and  social  lion  of 
some  ten  years'  standing,  but  probably  had  not 
been  read  by  2  per  cent,  of  the  electors. 
Standing  as  a  Liberal,  he  was  pitted  in  his  speech- 

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Great  Victorians 

making  against  the  Conservative,  Spencer  FoUett, 
far  and  away  the  finest  orator  that  most  people 
in  the  West  of  England  had  then  heard . 

Though  nowhere  at  the  subsequent  polling,  he 
knew  how  to  humour  the  sentiment  and  flatter 
the  local  patriotism  of  the  crowd.  "  My  experi- 
ences of  foreign  travel,"  he  said,  *'  certainly  had 
their  charm.  But,  gazing  on  Libanus  and  Anti- 
libanus,  I  could  not  but  feel  their  inferiority  to 
my  own  Mendip,  Quantock,  and  Blackdown. 
Even  the  River  Jordan  seemed  to  me  quite  un- 
worthy of  comparison  with  our  own  River  Parret." 
"  Something  of  the  vogue  which,  with  a  limited 
circle,  *  Eothen  '  won,  was  due,"  Kinglake  once 
told  me,  "  less  to  my  writing  than  to  OUivier's 
coloured  pictures  in  the  first  edition,  verging  as 
they  often  did  on  caricature,  of  Mexborough,  my 
travelling  companion,  and  myself.  People,  how- 
ever," he  went  on,  "  soon  got  disappointed  ;  for 
the  women  seemed  to  think  I  ought  to  be  a  sort 
of  Don  Juan  ;  and  that  was  not  then  my  humour." 
He  was  one  of  those  persons  to  whom  adventures 
seemed  to  have  a  way  of  naturally  coming,  or 
whose  everyday  experiences  had  in  them  an  un- 
usually large  element  of  the  adventurous.  At 
Eton  he  had  been  one  of  the  division  that  Keate 
stayed  up  all  night  to  flog.  **  Keate,"  he  told  me, 
*'  had  a   remarkable   fancy   for   working  himself 

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Mid- Victorian  Types  and   Forces 

into  a  scarlet-faced  passion  for  little  or  nothing. 
A  few  days  before,  because  some  boy  had  been 
inattentive  he  kept  us  in  long  after  the  usual  time. 
*  Well,'  I  murmured  too  audibly,  '  if  this  is  not  a 
shame,  there  never  was  one.'  The  Head  over- 
heard, threatened  me  with  a  special  flogging  or 
expulsion,  but,  instead  of  either,  remonstrated 
with  me  most  kindly.  He  seemed  quite  wounded 
in  his  feelings  when  on  the  fatal  night  my  turn  for 
execution  came.  But  the  Doctor  had  been  at  it 
ever  since  about  lo  p.m.  ;  his  arm,  therefore, 
was  rather  tired,  so  I  got  off  pretty  easily."  The 
trio  of  intimates  to  which  Kinglake  belonged 
included,  not  only  Hay  ward,  but  also  Eliot 
Warburton,  whose  "  Crescent  and  the  Cross " 
came  out  in  the  same  year  as  "  Eothen  "  ( 1844). 
Warburton  considered  he  received  from  Lord 
Ranelagh  an  insult,  demanding  the  satisfaction 
due  in  such  cases  from  and  to  a  gentleman .  It  was 
agreed,  therefore,  that  a  Norfolk  squire,  named 
Pack,  should  act  for  Ranelagh  and  that  Kinglake 
should  represent  Warburton.  "  Pack,"  to  give 
Kinglake's  words,  "  was  to  call  on  me  at  '  The 
Travellers','  between  7  and  9  p.m.  He  arrived 
punctually,  a  jolly,  red-faced.  East  Anglian 
squire,  up  for  the  cattle  week,  fresh  from  a  dinner 
at  the  Windham,  washed  down  by  abundance  of 
that  club's  then  famous   port.     He  almost  em- 

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Great  Victorians 

braced  me  in  his  effusive  geniality  and  opened  the 
interview  with,  *  I  always  say  that  Ranelagh  is  a 
gentleman.'  As  icily  as  I  could,"  continued 
Kinglake,  "  I  said,  '  That  I  am  willing  to  assume.' 
The  words  had  an  extraordinary  effect ;  for  they 
at  once  froze  him  sober."  Kinglake,  like  most 
of  his  friends,  had  always  been  on  intimate 
terms  with  the  first  President  of  the  third 
French  Republic.  On  the  official  headquarters 
being  removed  to  Versailles,  he  paid  his  old  friend 
a  visit,  riding  for  that  purpose  on  horseback  from 
Paris.  In  person,  manner,  age,  and  everything, 
no  greater  contrast  could  be  imagined  than  that 
between  the  author  of  *'  Eothen  "  and  the  baronet 
who  then  represented  Chelsea.  But,  as  Kinglake 
alighted  at  his  friend's  residence,  he  found  a 
crowd  collected  round  him,  saying,  to  his  great 
amusement,   "  II   doit  etre   Sir   Dilke." 

Through  Kinglake  I  was  often  in  the  company 
of  his  most  famous  Cambridge  contemporaries. 
Long  before  then,  indeed,  during  school  or 
college  holidays,  I  had  been  made  known  to 
Tennyson  by  my  dear  old  friend,  that  noble - 
hearted  gentleman,  Henry  Sewell  Stokes,  the 
Laureate's  frequent  host,  beneath  his  roof  in 
Strang  ways  Terrace,  Truro.  On  the  banks  of 
the  Fal,  near  Tregothnan,  where  I  was  watching 
some  fishermen  mending  their  boats,  the  great 

312 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

man,  then  in  a  remarkably  vigorous  middle  age, 
conspicuous  chiefly  for  his  brilliantly  flashing, 
jet  black  eyes  and  dense  crop  of  hair  to  match, 
often  strolled  up  to  me,  and  always  when  the 
boat -repairing  was  in  progress,  took  out  a  pocket 
edition  of  the  "  Odyssey,"  opened  it  at  the 
description  of  Ulysses  constructing  his  raft,  and 
turned  to  the  operations  then  in  progress  before 
him.  Then,  with  the  Greek  classic  in  one  hand 
and  the  other  pointing  to  the  details  of  the  boat- 
tinkering,  he  mouthed  out,  in  his  deep -chested 
sing-song,  the  features  of  their  industry  common 
to  the  Cornish  toilers  and  their  Homeric  proto- 
types. I  did  not  see  the  Laureate  again  till 
I  was  presented  to  him  in  Sir  James  Knowles's 
suburban  garden,  as  he  sat  together  with  the  other 
great  bard  of  the  day,  Robert  Browning,  receiving 
a  few  favoured  fellow -guests  at  the  entrance  of 
a  little  tent  on  the  lawn.  All  the  familiarity  of 
early  and  lifelong  friendship  showed  itself  in 
Kinglake's  talk  with  Tennyson  when  no  other 
guest  but  myself  was  there.  At  Cambridge  the 
two  men  often  dined  together  at  a  tavern.  In 
London  they  periodically  kept  up  the  practice  at 
the  Fleet  Street  "  Cock."  The  Laureate  then  still 
retained  his  picturesque  presence,  with  all  the 
added  impressiveness  of  years.  As  to  how  or 
what  he   looked  he  had  become  altogether  in- 

313 


Great  Victorians 

different.  His  slouch  felt  hats  and  his  capacious 
cloaks  were  worn  till  there  was  no  more  wear  in 
them  and  were  replaced  from  a  little  stock  of  both 
articles  which  he  always  had  on  hand  to  avoid, 
save  at  the  longest  intervals,  the  loathed  visit  to 
hatters  or  tailors  for  a  fresh  supply.  "  My  dear 
Alfred,"  one  of  his  old  Cambridge  "  Apostles," 
generally  Lord  Houghton,  would  say,  "  be  a  little 
more  careful,  or  they  will  take  you  for  one  of 
Carlyle's  '  old  clo'esmen '  from  Houndsditch  or 
Petticoat  Lane."  To  enjoy  or  even  fully  under- 
stand Tennyson's  intimate  talk  one  almost  ought, 
as  Thackeray,  his  contemporary  on  the  Cam,  told 
Browning,  to  have  been  with  him  at  college, 
because,  I  suppose,  of  his  frequent  allusions  to 
colloquies  or  discussions  with  his  Cambridge 
associates  on  Shakespeare  and  the  musical 
glasses,  on  every  age  of  English  and  classical 
literature,  as  if  they  had  been  held  only  the  other 
day  and  could  be  recalled  by  the  company  in 
which  he  happened  to  be  half  a  century  later. 
Tennyson's  literary  judgments  were  towards  the 
close  of  his  life  what  they  were  at  the  beginning. 
Dryden  he  admired  for  his  unexpectedness. 
"  But,"  he  asked,  "  why  should  Dryden  have 
drawn  Alexander  as  the  great  fool  which  his  poem 
makes  him?  Cowper  in  his  short  poems  was  an 
individual   and   a   thorough   gentleman   to  boot. 

314 


Mid- Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

Byron  said  nothing  not  literally  true  in  praise  of 
Pope's  imagination  and  fancy."  But  as  for 
Byron's  own  narrative  poems,  Tennyson  much 
preferred  the  headlong  drollery  of  Barham's 
Nicholas  in  the  "  Ingoldsby  Legends  "  to  the 
"  Bride  of  Abydos."  *'  I  myself,"  said  the  bard, 
"like  my  own  shorter  pieces  the  best.  As  for 
our  friend  Browning,  are  not  his  '  Ride  from 
Ghent,'  his  '  Cavalier  Lays,'  and  '  Herve  Riel  * 
worth  all  his  modern  epics  put  together.  In 
expression,"  he  went  on,  *'  I  am  not  perhaps 
below  Sophocles,  but  there's  nothing  in  me." 
"  That,"  commented  Lord  Houghton,  "  was  the 
height  of  paradoxical  exaggeration.  For  the 
Broad  Church  divines,  Maurice  and  F.  W. 
Robertson,  found  their  gospel  in  '  The  Two 
Voices,'  and  in  '  In  Memoriam,'  while  Herschell, 
Owen,  Sedgwick,  and  Tyndall  read  in  him  the 
reconciliation  of  science  and  religion."  Tenny- 
son had  always  been  absent-minded.  As  years 
went  on  he  almost  rivalled  in  this  quality  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  himself.  Henry  Irving  the  actor,  who 
latterly  saw  more  than  most  people  of  him,  was 
his  frequent  guest  both  at  Freshwater  and  Aid- 
worth.  A  bottle  of  port  generally  appeared  with 
the  dessert ;  the  guest  was  always  offered  and 
never  touched  the  wine,  which  the  host,  in  an 
abstracted  manner,  would  slowly  sip,  gradually 

315 


Great  Victorians 

coming  to  the  last  glass.  As  he  swallowed  this, 
he  would  turn  to  Irving  and  say,  '*  Do  you  always 
take  a  bottle  of  port  after  your  dinner?  " 

The  least  remembered,  but  assuredly  not  the 
least  remarkable,  of  the  Kinglake -Tennyson 
group  was  the  famous  banker  and  economist 
whose  visible  monument  to-day  is  the  London 
County  and  Westminster  Bank.  Jones  Loyd, 
till  his  death  as  Lord  Overstone  in  1883,  had 
lived  much  at  Cambridge  with  all  the  "  Apostles," 
if  not  himself  actually  one  of  the  number. 
He  shared  to  the  full  during  the  stormy 
fifties  the  warlike  enthusiasm'  of  his  friends. 
Benjamin  Disraeli,  Morell  Mackenzie,  the  throat 
specialist,  and  the  just  mentioned  Henry  Irving, 
all  impressed  one  with  an  extraordinary  feeling 
of  intellectual  power  and  a  superiority  over  their 
fellows.  So,  too,  did  Overstone.  No  one  could 
be  in  his  company  for  half  an  hour  without  the 
consciousness  of  looking  upon  a  unique  combina- 
tion of  mental  strength  generally,  with  insight 
into  individual  character  and  statesmanlike 
sagacity.  Together  with  Kinglake  and  Fitz- 
gerald he  was  the  Laureate's  guest  in  the  Isle  of 
Wight.  After  dinner  Tennyson  read  aloud  his 
invitation  to  the  Rev.  E.  D.  Maurice,  and  came 
to  the  lines  :— 

Where,  if  below  the  milky  steep 
Some  ship  of  battle  slowly  creep. 

316 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

Here  Overstone,  his  face  aglow  with  enthusiasm 
and  a  note  of  triumph  in  his  voice,  looking  in  the 
direction  of  the  sea,  burst  in  with,  "  Would  to 
Heaven  I  could  now  see,  not  one,  but  a  hundred, 
good  ships  of  the  line  sailing  eastward  !  " 

During  the  first  year  of  my  settlement  in 
London  I  called,  as  I  had  been  invited  to  do, 
at  the  Deanery,  St.  Paul's,  to  find  the  front  door 
blocked  by  some  young  people  of  both  sexes, 
tumbling,  as  fast  as  they  could  after  one  another, 
into  a  huge  travelling  carriage  and  pair.  They 
were  the  Dean's  youthful  relatives  or  dependents 
being  taken  off  by  him  on  their  summer  outing. 
When  this  holiday  rite  had  been  instituted  railway 
locomotion  was  practically  unknown  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Dover  Straits,  and  the  Milman  family 
drove  to  the  packet  station  on  the  English  coast 
in  their  family  coach,  re-entering  that  vehicle  as 
soon  as  they  reached  the  French  shore.  Steam 
locomotion  g^radually  penetrated  every  British  and 
European  corner.  The  Dean,  however,  clung  to 
the  fiction  of  the  road,  and  compromised  with  the 
facts  by  beginning  the  journey  behind  a  stout 
pair  of  horses,  afterwards  taking  the  water,  gener- 
ally, I  think,  at  Gravesend.  So,  at  least,  his 
accomplished  son.  Sir  Archibald  Milman,  Clerk 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  himself  told  me  when 
I  met  him  many  years  afterwards.     Within  a  few 

317 


Great  Victorians 

days  of  my  call  at  the  Deanery  I  dined  beneath 
its  roof .     My  chief  fellow-guests  were  men  whose 
fame  seemed  a  part  of  ancient  history,  with  the 
single  exception,  I  think,  of  the  future  Bishop  of 
Exeter,  then  Headmaster  of  Rugby.     Erederick 
Temple,    like    all    his    "  co-Essayists    and    Re- 
viewers," considered   H.   H.  Milman's  "  History 
of  the  Jews  "  the  first  really  great  literary  product 
of  the  Broad  Church  school,  applying,  as  it  did, 
the  same  critical  tests  to  the  Old  Testament  and 
other    sacred    writings    as    to    uninspired    and 
secular  literature.     Thus  one  of  the  septem  contra 
Christum,  eventually  in  1896  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, had  been  a  familiar  figure  to  me  while  he 
was   Phillpotts'    successor  as  Bishop  of  Exeter. 
Never  till  then,  however,  had  I  been  so  close  to 
him    as    to    estimate    rightly    his    extraordinary 
strength  of  body  and  limb.     Bred  on  a  Tiverton 
farm,  though  the  son  of  an  Army  officer,  he  justly 
gloried  in  his  power  to  plough  a  straight  furrow 
against  any  one,  and  might  sometimes  be  seen 
helping,  with  his  enormous  shoulder,  a  coal -cart 

out  of  a  rut  or  uphill.     "The  Hon.  Mr. ," 

announced  his  servant  as  he  sat  in  his  study  in  the 
Exeter  palace.  The  Bishop  never  looked  up 
from  his  writing-table,  but  simply  said,  "  Take 
a  chair,"  and  went  on  with  his  pen.  '*  Perhaps, 
my  lord/'  murmured  the  abashed  visitor,  "  you 

318 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

do  not  know  that  I  come  from "     '*  Take  two 

chairs  !  "  was  the  only  episcopal  acknowledgment 
vouchsafed.  As  for  the  host,  he  was  very  full, 
before  dinner,  of  his  latest  travels  abroad. 
Amongst  other  places,  he  had  lately  been  at 
Prague.  Here  his  patriarchal  appearance,  to- 
gether with  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew  tongues 
and  customs,  had  caused  him  to  be  taken  for  a 
distinguished  foreign  Rabbi ;  by  way  of  compli- 
ment the  Synagogue  officials  gave  him  a  copy 
of  the  '*  Torah,"  the  Book  of  the  Law,  in  other 
words,  the  '*  Pentateuch,"  to  carry.  While  at 
Prague  he  saw  much  of  an  ancient  Polish  general, 
Skrynecki,  who,  he  said,  gave  him  almost  a  daily 
lesson  in  military  tactics.  But  far  the  best  of 
Milman's  travellers'  tales  concerned  themselves 
with  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia,  who  had 
died  only  five  years  before  the  Dean's  own 
birth,  and  whose  memory  at  the  time  of 
Milman's  first  German  trip  had  been  fresh 
enough  for  the  visitor  to  bring  back  many 
good  stories  about  him  that,  at  least  then, 
were  quite  new.  Most  of  these  had  come 
immediately  from  Goethe,  who  reproduced  the 
theatrical  gestures  with  which  Frederick  attri- 
buted his  attack  on  Maria  Theresa  to  "  the 
vivacity  of  my  temperament,  my  well -filled  war- 
chest,  and  my  thirst  for  glory."     "  To  the  sag© 

319 


Great  Victorians 

of  Weimar,'*  said  the  Dean,  '*  it  seemed  an  out- 
break of  the  national  '  Sturnt  and  Drang  '  period. 
For  the  comfort  of  posterity,"  added  Milman, 
'*  Goethe  spoke  of  the  results  entailed  by 
Frederick's  precedent  as  likely  to  last  into  the 
twentieth  century.  Ages  must  pass,"  said  the 
Dean,  **  before  the  great  Prussian  robber  or  his 
family  traits  can  be  understood.  Look  at  the 
conditions  under  which  he  grew  up.  With  his 
father,  Frederick  William'  I,  his  life  was  never 
worth  a  day's  purchase.  As  the  greatest  knave 
and  rogue  in  Europe,  he  was  condemned  to  pass 
about  one-third  of  his  youth  in  a  fortress,  and 
almost  repeatedly  escaped  by  a  miracle  being 
done  to  death.  The  sire  who  hanged  one  0)f  his 
counsellors  for  a  trivial  offence,  and  compelled 
all  the  others  to  be  present  at  the  execution,  was 
not  likely  to  spare  the  son  who  had  provoked  his 
wrath  by  an  unsuccessful  attempt  at  escape  to 
England,  where  his  uncle,  George  I,  was  then 
King.  Frederick  William  I  had  a  kind  of  affec- 
tion for  his  wife  ;  he  made  her  life  scarcely  less 
of  a  terror  to  her  than  existence  became  a  burden 
to  his  son.  The  poor  woman  appealed  to  the 
English  Court  for  help ;  a  royal  separation  be- 
came the  fashionable  talk  of  Berlin.  *  It  would 
be,'  said  Frederick  William,  '  like  having  a  de- 
cayed tooth  drawn— a  momentary  pang  and  then 

320 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and   Forces 

one  would  get  over  it.'  "  In  due  course  the  son 
modelled  himself  upon  the  sire.  The  Potsdam 
Palace  still  contains  many  memorials  of  the 
second  Frederick's  friendship  with  Voltaire. 
Some  of  these  exhibited  at  once  its  apparent 
warmth  and  its  real  danger  to  the  great  French 
writer.  The  Sans  Souci  archives  were  not  at  one 
time  thought  to  explain  satisfactorily  the  incidents 
causing  the  King's  abuse  of  the  poet  as  a  fool, 
hypocrite,  and  traitor.  To  Milman  the  whole 
matter  seemed  perfectly  clear.  Voltaire's  purpose 
of  leaving  Prussia  was  as  unpardonable  an  offence 
in  the  eyes  of  his  royal  host  as  Admiral  von 
Tirpitz  considers  the  desire  of  a  neutral  trading 
ship  to  place  itself  outside  the  range  of  his  guns. 
"  The  wretch,"  said  Frederick,  *'  wishes  to  hand 
my  poems  round  Europe  and  make  fun  of  them." 
As  a  fact,  Voltaire  had  none  of  these  verses  in  his 
possession.  His  imprisonment,  therefore,  came 
to  an  end  after  five  weeks  ;  he  then  proceeded  on 
his  journey,  and,  safely  gaining  Switzerland,  had 
his  revenge  in  writing  and  publishing  during  the 
summer  of  1853  his  scandalous  but  deadly 
satirical  "  Life  of  the  King  of  Prussia."  Small 
wonder,  therefore,  that  J.-J.  Rousseau,  some 
years  afterwards,  would  not  walk  into  the  trap 
from  which  Voltaire  found  it  so  difficult  to  escape. 
A  cow  and  poultry,  the   cultivation  of  his  own 

321  X 


Great  Victorians 

vegetables,  a  quiet  life  with  its  necessaries,  a  sub- 
stantial   pension,    and    liberty    were    the    baits. 
'*  Why,"  said  Jean-Jacques,  *'  do  you  offer  these 
things  to  me,  but  withhold  them  from  the  brave 
men  who  have  lost  a  leg  or  arm  in  your  service  ?  " 
"  This  monster,"   Goethe  said  to   Milman,  "  was 
also  a  born  sentimentalist,  with  crocodile's  tears 
ever  ready   for   the  eyes.      First   one,   then  an- 
other, of  his  young  military  favourites  died  ;    he 
insisted  on  keeping  the  dead  bodies  in  his  room: 
till  some  time  after  decomposition  had  set  in." 
Some  of  those  who,  on  the  occasion  now  re- 
called, were  seen  by  me  at  St.  Paul's  Deanery, 
bore  names  that  took  one  back  into  the  Byronic 
period,  if  not  a  generation  farther.     To  one  who 
had  only   the  day  before   yesterday  put  on   his 
bachelor's  hood,   like  the  present  writer,  it  was 
the  entrance  into  a  new  world  that  was  the  old. 
Did   I,   some  one   asked  me,   know  who  it  was 
that  before  dinner  in  the  drawing-room  had  stood 
next    to    me,    leaning    against    the    mantelpiece? 
It  turned  out  to  be  no  less  a  person  than  the  Wliig 
manager   and    Liberal   disciplinarian,   the    Right 
Hon.  Edward  Ellice,  the  great  Earl  Grey's  son- 
in-law,  who,  it  seemed,  had  been  telling  some  one 
near  me  how  absurdly  the  great  Lord  Brougham 
exaggerated  his  importance  to  and  influence  with 
the  Grey  Reform^  Government.     Of  two  Bishops 

322 


Mid- Victorian  Types  and   Forces 

present,  one  formed  the  only  member  of  the  com- 
pany I  had  ever  seen  before.  This  was  the  Right 
Rev.  John  Robert  Eden,  then  Bishop  of  Bath  and 
Wells  ;  but  for  his  episcopal  dress  he  might  have 
been  taken  for  a  great  Kentish  or  Somerset 
squire.  Thackeray  recounts  his  own  almost  in- 
credible experience  of  having  known  a  lady 
sought  in  marriage  by  Horace  Walpole.  Exactly 
at  the  time  now  looked  back  upon  I  did  not  know 
the  facts,  but  it  seemed  afterwards  overwhelming 
to  learn  that  my  old  friend  the  Somersetshire 
diocesan  of  the  sixties  must  have  been  the 
brother  of  the  Hon.  Emily  Eden,  the  first  Lord 
Auckland's  daughter,  the  only  woman  the  second 
William  Pitt  is  known  to  have  loved,  whose  re- 
fusal to  him  by  her  father  he  took  deeply  to  Jieart. 
The  episcopal  Lord  Auckland,  in  the  kindest 
way  possible,  presented  me  to  another  prelate 
present.  Bishop  Samuel  Wilberforce  had  been 
installed  in  the  Oxford  see  twenty  years  earlier. 
At  a  later  date  family  accidents  secured  me  his 
friendship  and  many  good  offices.  At  the 
Deanery  dinner  he  sat  next  to  Sir  Charles  Lyell 
and  Michael  Faraday.  Lyell  had  just  returned 
from  a  visit  to  Oxford,  and  told  the  company  how 
he  had  found  the  general  idea  of  the  place  to  be 
that  the  Old  Testament  was  a  fabrication  of  some 
spiritually  minded  Jews  and  the  New  Testament 

323 


Great  Victorians 

of  some  similarly  disposed  Christians  afterwards. 
A  propos  of  physical  research  and  the  Oxford 
curriculum,  the  Dean,  who  had  known  Sir  Walter 
Scott  well,  quoted  his  disbelief  in  the  improve- 
ment to  be  derived  from  the  advancement  of 
science,  on  the  ground  of  its  being  the  study 
whose  ultimate  tendency  must  be  to  harden  the 
heart .  Faraday,  a  propos  of  its  intellectual  value, 
said^  "  Its  education  of  the  judgmient  has,  for  its 
first  and  last  step,  humility."  After  Bishop  Wil- 
berforce,  who  left  early,  had  gone,  the  tolerant 
and  comprehensive  host  murmured,  I  think  to  the 
publisher,  John  Murray  the  third,  the  pleasure 
it  would  have  given  him  had  it  been  possible 
to  see  at  his  table  Wilberforce's  brother-in-law, 
Henry  Edward  Manning,  who  in  the  preceding 
spring  had  followed  Cardinal  Wiseman  as  Roman 
Catholic  Archbishop  of  Westminster.  The  two 
men  never,  so  far  as  I  saw,  met  in  private  society, 
but  constantly  encountered  each  other  at  public 
and  semi -public  functions— always  with  something 
like  competition  between  the  two.  Nothing  on 
such  occasions  could  exceed  Wilberforce's  vigi- 
lant adroitness  and  gentlemanlike  tact.  On  the 
platform  or  at  the  table  Manning  kept  a  close 
look-out  for  the  chance  of  taking  precedence,; 
of  the  Bishop.  As  surely  as  he  had  seemed  to 
triumph  by  entering  the  room  first  or  taking  the 

324 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and   Forces 

place  of  honour,  Wilberforce,  up  to  that  moment 
invisible,  contrived  to  get  ahead  of  him,  and  look 
back  with  a  smile  two-thirds  seraphic  and  one- 
third  satirical.  Whatever  the  Bishop's  strength 
or  weakness  in  pure  theology,  he  certainly  stood 
high  among  the  most  accomplished  men  of  his 
time.  His  real  turn  struck  those  who  talked  with 
him  as  less  for  divinity  than  for  mathematics  and 
physical  science.  Whether  with  pen,  on  platform, 
or  at  the  dinner-table,  he  could  at  least  hold  his 
own,  perhaps  more,  against  the  physical  savants 
of  his  time.  His,  indirectly,  was  the  suggestion 
that  in  early  days  caused  the  Dally  Telegraph 
to  make  a  point  of  publishing,  at  least  once  a 
week,  a  leader  on  some  branch  of  national  re- 
search. Thus  typifying  a  marked  intellectual 
tendency  of  his  time,  he  was  the  earliest  of  the 
new  school  of  bishops.  Who  used  their  office  not  to 
glorify  their  apostleship  but  to  serve  their  Church 
by  sheer  hard  work.  In  the  House  of  Lords  over 
some  scientific  issue  of  the  time  a  little  breeze 
often  sprang  up  between  the  Bishop  and  the 
Duke  of  Argyll,  and  occasionally,  on  a  different 
issue,  with  Lord  Shaftesbury,  who  once  charged 
him  with  an  offensive  utterance.  The  Bishop  was 
most  indignant.  "  I  can  assure,"  he  said,  "  the 
noble  lord  and  the  House  that  the  utmost  I  sug- 
gested was   that  words  of  a  certain  sort,  if  not 

325 


Great  Victorians 

employed  in  a  purely  Pickwickian  sense,  might 
be  considered  as  verging  on  the  unsavoury." 

Manning,  perhaps  Wilberforce's  equal— no  one 
could  have  been  his  superior— in  administration, 
had  by  several  years  the  start  in  the  purely  social 
race.  He  first  made  his  mark  during  the  season 
of  1856,  when  Mayfair  welcomed  him  as  a  new- 
comer, a  fine-looking,  intellectual  priest,  with  good 
manners  and  very  agreeable,  a  friend  of  Sidney 
Herbert,  with  whom  he  had  been  at  Harrow,  and 
whom  he  rated  very  highly.  Manning  had  not 
then  begun  proselytizing,  and  never  spoke  bitterly 
of  the  Church  in  which  he  had  been  born  and 
bred.  He  only  lamented  the  loss  of  its  influence 
with  the  middle  and  lower  classes,  due,  as  he 
thought,  to  the  clergy's  habit  of  writing  their 
sermons.  "  That,"  he  said,  "  made  the  preachers 
appear  less  in  earnest,  and  also  less  careful  in 
preparing  their  discourse  than  if  they  were  about 
to  speak  it.  You  Anglicans,"  he  added,  "  seem 
to  forget  that  the  artisans  are  a  very  sceptical 
and  thinking  race."  Something  to  the  same  effect 
I  heard  from  him  many  years  later  when  he  used 
to  receive  me  at  "  Archbishop's  House,  West- 
minster." In  the  winter  he  used  to  keep  his  fire 
heaped  up  high  and  his  room  at  a  temperature 
which  only  the  strongest  heart  could  have  borne. 
*'  This,"  he  would  say,  pointing  to  the  grate  and 

326 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

the  thermometer  near  it,  "is  my  Riviera,  and  I 
command  at  home  a  cHmate  equal  to  anything  in 
the  South  of  France." 

**  Turned  over  Philo,  also  some  of  a  novel  about 
sporting;  a  Mr.  Sponge  the  hero."  So  wrote 
Macaulay  in  his  diary  for  the  spring  of  1856. 
More  than  a  generation  after  this  a  well-known 
Member  of  Parliament  and  a  Foreign  Under- 
Secretary  were  groping  their  way  out  of  the  ill -lit 
hall  and  obscure  garden  path  of  a  suburban  villa 
where  they  had  been  dining.  **  Very  dark,"  said 
the  M.P.  "Yes,"  was  the  Under-Secretary's 
comment,  and,  as  if  to  amend  and  complete  a 
faulty  quotation,  "  '  Hellish  dark  and  smells  of 
cheese,'  as  said  Mr.  Jorrocks."  It  was  indeed 
a  quotation  from  the  creator  of  "  Soapy  "  Sponge, 
who  had  first  achieved  fame  in  sporting  fiction 
by  "  Jorrocks's  Jaunts  and  Jollities."  This,  like 
all  the  writings  of  Robert  Smith  Surtees, 
abounded  in  sentences  such  as  the  foregoing, 
constantly  on  the  lips  of  school  or  college  youths 
during  the  nineteenth  century's  first  half.  Such 
were  verbal  contortions  a  la  Mrs.  Malaprop, 
"  Wot  a  consternation  [constellation]  of  genius  !  " 
and  the  Jorrockian  exclamation,  on  being  thrown 
from  his  horse  over  a  wall  into  a  cucumber  frame, 
"  My  heyes,  vot  a  splitter  !  and  all  for  a  fippun 
note  1  "  As  an  undergraduate  I  saw  more  than 

327 


Great  Victorians 

once  this  pioneer  of  the  sporting  novel,  with  his 
tall,  erect  form,  high  cheekbones,  quiet  dress, 
and  grave  expression  of  face,  at  the  Old  Ship 
Hotel,   Brighton. 

The  second  son  of  a  Durham  squire,  who  had 
bought  his  estate,  Hambersley  Hall,  from  the 
Swinburne  family,  Surtees  went  to  the  south  coast 
while  his  family  stuck  to  Scarborough.  His  most 
frequent  companion  at  the  *'  Ship "  was  John 
Leech,  of  Punch,  and  afterwards  the  illustrator  of 
his  own  novels.  Those  were  the  days  when  noble 
sportsmen  talked  and  dressed  like  professional 
coachmen  and  jockeys,  when  Thackeray's  Jack 
Snaffle,  Spavin,  and  Cockspur  would  have  been 
flattered  by  being  mistaken  for  grooms,  and  in 
any  Turf  transaction  would  have  cheated  their 
own  fathers  if  by  so  doing  they  could  have 
gained  a  point  in  the  odds.i  Those  humours  of 
the  time  were  personified  most  faithfully  in  the 
pages  of  Surtees  by  the  pencil  of  Leech. 

As  regards  dress  and  bearing,  both  Robert 
Smith  Surtees  and  John  Leech  might  have  been 
taken  for  Church  of  England  clergymen.  And 
the  fidelity  of  Surtees  to  the  temper  of  his  time 
will  be  the  better  realized  when  one  remembers 
that    Mark    Lemon   and   Charles    Dickens   were 

^  "Book  of  Snobs,"  p.  191,  Pocket  Edition  (Smith,  Elder 
&  Co.),  1887. 

328 


Mid- Victorian  Types  and    Forces 

then  the  lions  of  the  Pavilion,  and  that  J.  B. 
Buckstone  with  Paul  Bedford  and  J.  L.  Toole 
delighted  the  highest  theatrical  taste  of  the  day 
at  Mrs.  Nye  Chart's  newly  decorated  playhouse. 

By  this  time  Surtees,  now  a  qualified  solicitor, 
had  gone  into  business  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields, 
and,  together  with  Rudolf  Akermann,  had  started 
the  very  successful  New  Sporting  Magazine.  He 
still  contrived,  like  Anthony  Trollope  at  the  Post 
Office,  to  get  one  or  two  days'  hunting  every 
week.  By  1836  he  had  given  up  his  magazine 
editing  and  inherited  the  North  Country  family 
estates,  but  by  the  pen-name  of  "  The  Yorkshire- 
man  "  or  by  his  own  gave  a  transcript  in  the 
"  Jorrocks  "  series  as  well  as  in  articles  for  BeWs 
Life  of  his  own  adventures  in  town  and  country. 
Macaulay  called  the  style  of  "  Soapy  "  Sponge 
not  vulgar  but  loose  ;  and  though  Surtees  wrote 
about  vulgar  people  and  their  stable  tricks,  he 
had  profited  too  well  by  his  study  of  Apperley's 
("Nimrod")  Quarterly  Review  essays,  and  was 
too  well  bred  a  man  of  the  world,  to  write 
vulgarly  himself. 

Before  Surtees  died  at  the  "  Old  Ship," 
Brighton,  in  1864,  he  had  lived  long  enough 
to  see  the  rise  of  other  sporting  authors,  who, 
writing  rather  in  Apperley's  style  than  his  own, 
owed   something  to   his   example.     Tall,   heavy- 

329 


Great  Victorians 

moustached  and  whiskered,  languid  of  manner 
and  look,  G.  J.  Whyte- Melville,  of  the  Cold- 
streams  first  and  the  Turkish  Cavalry  afterwards, 
was  the  very  ideal  of  a  thoroughbred  beau 
sabreur,  with  a  bored  and  melancholy  air,  re- 
calling Sir  Charles  Coldstream  in  "  Used  Up," 
who  had  seen  and  done  everything  and  "  found 
nothing  in  it."  Notwithstanding  his  air  of  dis- 
tressed dreaminess,  he  had  a  keen  sense  of  fun, 
never  shown  more  happily  than  in  the  church  at 
St.  Andrew's,  when  on  a  visit  to  his  friend  and 
publisher,  John  Blackwood.  Dean  Stanley  was 
preaching  a  St.  Bartholomew's  Day  sermon,  and 
in  it  he  used  Dr.  Chalmers's  expression,  "  the 
expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection."  Whyte- 
Melville  whispered  in  his  host's  ear,  "  Capital 
phrase  that,  Blackwood,  for  the  Divorce  Court  !  " 
To  ride  straight  to  hounds  and  to  say  nothing  was 
his  favourite  prescription  for  a  young  man's  suc- 
cess in  after-life.  Whyte -Melville  often  rode  to 
hounds  in  the  Oxford  and  Bucks  country.  While 
making  the  University  town  his  headquarters,  he 
met  an  undergraduate  originally  at  Balliol,  then 
(1850)  about  to  take  his  B.A.  from  New  Inn 
Hall,  destined  by  the  literary  example  of  his 
accomplished  elder  afterwards  to  become  a 
novelist  as  typical  of  his  time  as  Whyte-Melville 
himself . 

330 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

This  was  George  Alfred  Lawrence^  an  Essex 
clergyman's  son.  Going  from  Rugby  to  Balliol 
in  1 84s,  he  made  himself  a  fair  classic,  nourishing 
himself  in  Greek,  chiefly  on  Homer,  exulting  in 
the  poet's  sonorous  cadence  and  swing  and  heroic 
pictures  of  battle  and  love.  Next  to  "  Digby 
Grand  "  and  "  Kate  Coventry,"  the  "  Iliad  "  and 
"  Odyssey  "  were  the  earliest  intellectual  forces 
contributing  to  the  later  production  of  **  Guy 
Livingstone  "  and  "  Sword  and  Gown,"  to  men- 
tion only  two  in  a  long  list.  For  each  of  these 
novels,  all  securing  an  immense  vogue  at  the 
time,  the  publishers,  Tinsley  Brothers,  paid 
Lawrence  £1,000.  At  Oxford  Lawrence's  course, 
if  not  highly  distinguished,  had  been  in  many 
respects  exemplary.  My  old  friend  Mr. 
Strachan-Davidson,  the  present  Master  of  Balliol, 
has  very  kindly  ascertained  for  me  that  the 
college  records  show  no  black  mark  against  him, 
and  that  his  migration  to  the  "  Tavern "  was 
altogether  voluntary.^  Afterwards  in  business 
of  every  kind  he  showed  himself  the  soul  of 
method,   punctuality,  and  honour. 

Lawrence  was  now  beginning  to  be  known  in 

^  The  Balliol  register  of  terms  kept  begins  only  in  1852 — i.e. 
two  years  after  Lawrence's  time.  The  Latin  register  of  offences 
against  discipline,  with  admonitions  and  rustications,  contains  no 
reference  to  him  whatever. 

331 


Great  Victorians 

the  **  whole  world "  as  well  as  in  the  "  half- 
world."  The  notion  that  this,  his  first  novel, 
formed  an  autobiography  of  his  boyhood  and 
youth  increased  the  piquancy  of  his  personal 
interests.  To  boys  and  very  young  men  it 
possessed  the  same  sort  of  fascination  as  Byron's 
poems,  with  their  personages  and  their  philo- 
sophy, in  an  earlier  generation.  The  chubbiest 
of  golden  youths  discarded  their  usual  collars 
and  ties  and  sported  a  neck -gear  known  as  "  ^  la 
Guy  Livingstone."  Others,  in  the  Livingstonian 
fashion,  *'  set  their  faces  like  a  flint,"  and  ad- 
dressed their  sweethearts  in  tones  of  calm  com- 
mand rather  than  the  old-world  voice  of 
beseeching  admiration.  "  The  world  consists  of 
soldiers,  the  aristocracy,  and  others.  Of  these 
classes  the  first  two  treat  as  they  please  the 
third,  which  duly  submits,  and  even  rather  likes 
it.  Run  off,  supposing  you  can,  with  your 
friend's  wife,  if  she  likes  you  better  than  she 
does  him.  It  is  a  duty  you  owe  to  Society. 
Should  you  be  an  excessively  strong  man,  attack 
and  terrify  every  one  smaller  than  yourself.  You 
have,  perhaps,  very  little,  and  even  no  money. 
Get  any  one  you  can  to  trust  you,  and  victimize 
them  to  the  uttermost  farthing.  This  is  not 
swindling.  It  is  simply  being  a  '  detrimental.' 
If  you  are  a  man  your  two  objects  in  life  are 

332 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

the  chasse  de  marie e  and  the  chasse  de  renardy 
with,  of  course,  frequent  intervals  of  whist  and 
ecarte.  Such  is  the  whole  duty  of  man.  Stick 
to  it ;  never  break  your  word  to  a  friend,  or 
keep  it  to  a  woman.  You  are  then  a  gentleman 
and  true  to  all  the  essential  principles  of  your 
'  order.'  "  Such  is  the  moral  of  the  Livingstonian 
novels.  Part  of  it,  that  relating  to  the  chivalrous 
obligations  of  brute  force,  reads  like  a  presage 
of  twentieth -century  Germanism  in  those  mani- 
festations and  precepts  so  well  known  to  the 
world.  It  was  the  concentration,  epitome,  and 
amalgam  of  a  theory  of  life  which  to  boys  of  the 
mid-Victorian  epoch  exactly  represented  every- 
thing that  "  Childe  Harold  "  and  "  Don  Juan  " 
did  to  their  fathers. 

Anything  specially  autobiographical  must  be 
looked  for  only  in  "  Border  and  Bastille  "  ( 1863) 
—recalling  a  journey  to  the  United  States  to 
become  a  Confederate  volunteer.  Before  Law- 
rence reached  his  destination  he  was  taken 
prisoner  and  shut  up  in  the  guardhouse,  ilt 
took  some  time  before  Lord  Lyons,  then  British 
Minister  at  Washington,  secured  his  liberation 
on  a  promise  that  he  would  immediately  return 
to   England. 

A  great  gambler,  he  had  what  is  not  seldom 
the  gambler's  virtue  of  keeping  his  engagements 

333 


Great  Victorians 

to  the  day  and  hour.  The  large  sums  sent  to  him 
at  Baden-Baden  or  Horn  burg  by  the  Catherine 
Street  House  were  worked  off  as  soon  as  uninter- 
mitting  industry  allowed.  George  Lawrence's 
muscular  paganism  formed  a  typical  product  of 
the  literary  movement  that,  first  inspiring  the 
muscular  Christianity  of  Charles  Kingsley  and 
"  Tom  "  Hughes,  afterwards  found  its  expression 
in  the  Army  romancists,  who,  like  James  Grant, 
author  of  *'  The  Aide-de-camp "  and  "  The 
Romance  of  War,"  were  in  their  beginnings  the 
creations  of  Charles  Lever  alone.  To  each  of 
these  a  good  deal  was  owed  by  Lawrence,  when, 
having  left  Oxford  for  chambers  in  the  Temple, 
he  settled  finally  in  London.  Here,  thanks  to  his 
mother's  titled  relatives,  he  saw  as  much  as  he 
cared  for  of  the  smart  aristocracy  generally  de- 
scribed in  his  novels  as  "  the  order  "  to  which  his 
heroes  and  heroines  belonged. 

His  first  practical  introduction  to  literary 
workers  and  work  took  place,  soon  after  he  left 
Oxford,  in  a  little  thoroughfare  off  Regent  Street, 
at  a  house  of  call  then  much  frequented  by  the 
most  successful  delineators  of  adventurous  life. 
The  chief  acquaintances  made  by  Lawrence  at 
this  place  were  G.  P.  R.  James,  during  the  in- 
tervals of  his  consular  service  in  South  America 
first,    and    Venice    afterwards,    till    his    death    in 

334 


Mid- Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

i860,  and  Captain  Mayne  Reid,  the  contrast  of 
whose  dress  with  his  face  made  him  something 
of  a  cross  between  a  Paris  houlevardier  and  one 
of  his  own  prairie  freebooters,  the  heroes  of  those 
stories  that  had  made  him  a  kind  of  classic  with 
the  juvenile  public  during  the  first  half  of  the 
Victorian  age.     He  had  been  called  to  the  Bar 
at  the   Inner  Temple  in    1852.     The  two  Fleet 
Street  friends   whose   conversation  and  example 
impelled  him  to  authorship  soon  afterwards  were 
the    two    essentially    Victorian    writers,    Edmund 
Yates    and    G.    A.    Sala,    each    a    real    help    to 
Lawrence  on  his  first  start.     Both  these  clever 
writers   were  very  well-read  men  on   character- 
istically Victorian  lines.    They  had  really  studied 
life  and  literature  in  all  their  aspects,  and  differed 
in  nothing  more  from  their  twentieth -century  suc- 
cessors than  in  their  contemptuous  ignorance,  in 
all  its  departments,  of  the  physical  science  now- 
more    and    more    successfully    competing    with 
letters  as  a  basis  of  training  for  those  who  write. 
The  **  romance  of  realism  "  was  the  phrase  in 
which  Lawrence's  novels  were  summed  up  by  his 
most    gifted    but    most    admiring    disciple    and 
imitator,  Ouida.    She  had  come  powerfully  under 
the  spell  of  Lawrence's  pen  long  before  she  made, 
in  the  early  sixties,  his  personal  acquaintance  ; 
this  was  secured  her  in  the  following  manner  : 

335 


Great  Victorians 

"  Harry  Stone,"  a  tall  Yankee  with  a  particularly 
good  carriage,  having  business  connections  with 
New  York,  Paris,  and  London,  a  pioneer  of  the 
elderly  Transatlantic  dandy  of  later  days,  had 
seen  Miss  Ramee  in  various  countries.  He  had 
also  met  Lawrence  at  the  Air  Street  Tavern. 
At  one  of  his  rarely  given  *'  Star  and  Garter," 
Richmond,  dinners,  Ouida  gratified  one  of  her 
earlier  ambitions  by  meeting  Lawrence .  She  had 
then  written  nothing  in  book  shape.  Within  two 
or  three  years  appeared  the  first  of  her  novels  to 
make  its  mark,  ''  Strathmore."  Something  like  a 
generation  afterwards  I  heard  her  say  to 
Lawrence,  whom  she  met  for  the  last  time  on  the 
sea -front  at  Ostend,  "  Without  '  Guy  Livingstone  ' 
there  would  have  been  no  '  Strathmore.'  "  For 
some  time  after  her  fame  had  fully  established 
itself,  she  valued  Lawrence's  opinion  more  than 
that  of  any  other  writer.  **  With  all  his  paganism, 
his  questionable  morality,  and  much  else  of  the 
same  sort,  he  has,"  I  heaM  her  once  say,  ''  the 
rare  power  of  breathing  real  life  into  his 
characters  and  holding  the  interest  of  all  who 
read  him."  Some  one  in  her  presence  had  depre- 
ciated the  '*  Guy  Livingstone "  guardsmen  as 
fancy  pictures  by  one  who  only  knew  the  Army 
from  his  own  Militia  regiment.  "And,"  she  at 
once  rejoined,  "  was  not  the  best  sketch  of  every- 

336 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and   Forces 

day  Oxford  life  and  people  written  by  a  man 
[one  Davies  with  the  pen-name  of  "  Cuthbert 
Bede  "]  who  had  lived  in  no  university  but  Dur- 
ham, and  only  knew  Oxford  as  a  visitor?"  A 
little  later,  during  one  of  her  London  residences 
at  the  Langham  Hotel,  I  met  at  one  of  her 
**  cause  rles  intlmes,  cigarettes  per  raises,''  to  quote 
her  invitation  cards,  the  then  Sir  Frederick  John- 
stone (died  19 13),  Serjeant  Ballantine,  and 
"  Harry  Stone  "  himself ;  that  gentleman  was 
openly  saluted  by  the  hostess  as  the  early  friend 
who,  in  the  way  just  described,  had,  without 
knowing  it,  helped  her  on  the  literary  road. 

Personally  the  most  amiable,  physically  the 
most  unfortunate  of  the  mid-Victorian  writers, 
was  Francis  Smedley.  He  had  been  prevented 
by  lameness  from  going  to  Westminster  School, 
but  had  been  the  private  pupil  of  his  uncle,  a 
clergyman  at  Chesterton,  close  to  Cambridge. 
Here  he  picked  up  a  good  deal  of  knowledge, 
ancient  and  modern,  as  well  as  some  acquaintance 
with  University  life,  of  which  he  made  the  most 
in  his  first  novel,  immediately  and  immensely 
successful,  "  Frank  Fairlegh."  Many  years  after 
this  I  saw  him  at  his  house  in  Regent's  Park. 
During  the  few  minutes  I  was  in  his  company  two 
things  struck  me,  first  his  extreme  graciousness 
and  gentleness  of  manner,  secondly  the  feminine 

337  Y 


Great  Victorians 

alertness  of  perception  with  which  Nature  seemed 
to  have  compensated  his  bodily  disability.  The 
great  masters  of  Victorian  fiction  were  of  course 
in  every  one's  hands  during  these  years.  With 
the  younger  generation  of  readers  now  looked 
back  upon,  neither  Dickens  nor  Thackeray, 
neither  Captain  Marryat  nor  Charles  Lever,  not- 
withstanding their  wider  and  more  enduring 
popularity,  was  assimilated  and  became  part  of 
his  readers'  being  to  anything  like  the  same 
extent  as  the  smaller  romancists  now  recalled  as 
at  once  types  and  forces  of  their  age.  Not  indeed 
till  this^  second  decade  of  the  twentieth  century 
has  the  genius  of  Dickens,  as  regards  the  concep- 
tion of  life  and  drawing  of  character,  to  a  really 
noticeable  degree  shown  its  influence  upon  a 
novelist  of  the  first  order,  like  Mr.  Joseph 
Conrad.  And  even  he,  certainly  with  respect  to 
diction  and  style,  owes  at  least  as  much  to  Mr. 
Henry  James  as  to  the  author  of  "  David  Copper- 
field."  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  in  the  remarkable  series 
including  "  Tono -Bungay,"  "The  New  Machia- 
velli,"  and  "  The  Passionate  Friends,"  so  far  as 
he  reflects  anything  that  is  not  entirely  himself, 
shows  himself  no  student  of  Dickens  or  Thackeray 
and  is  exclusively  the  product  of  the  same 
agencies  that  made  George  Meredith. 

As    writers    few    men    in    tone,    temper,    and 

338 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

general  sympathies  could  differ  more  than  the 
historians  J.  A.  Froude  and  W.  E.  H.  Lecky. 
When  associating  in  the  flesh  with  the  rest  of  their 
kind,  the  two  men  displayed  many  qualities  in 
common.  Lecky,  indeed,  gentle  and  almost 
caressing  in  manner,  his  delicate  features  quiver- 
ing with  sensibility,  presented  a  marked  contrast 
to  Froude's  strongly  moulded  nose,  lips,  chin,  and 
jaw,  and,  as  regards  his  conversation  and  manner, 
equally  lacked  all  suspicion  of  the  veiled  aggres- 
siveness which,  notwithstanding  his  grave  and 
even  solemn  urbanity,  something  about  Froude 
seemed  to  suggest.  Lecky,  a  born  peacemaker, 
more  than  once  tried  secretly  to  compose  the 
quarrels  of  his  contemporaries.  His  artistic  pains 
to  illustrate  with  fresh  personal  details  the  rela- 
tions of  famous  men  and  women  with  the  move- 
ments, moral,  spiritual,  and  political,  of  their  time, 
gave  him  a  position  midway  between  the  picture- 
painting  chroniclers  and  the  scientific  researchers 
of  the  later  Oxford  school- 
Where  from  alternate  tubs 
Stubbs  butters  Freeman,  Freeman  butters  Stubbs. 

In  spite  of  Thorold  Rogers's  epigram,  no  two 
men  could  be  personally  more  unlike  each  other. 
The  Somerset  equestrian,  pounding  on  his  stout 
cob   through   the   lanes    surrounding   his   house, 

339 


Great  Victorians 

**  Somerleaze,"  Wells,  generally  enlivened  his 
solitary  ride  by  singing  at  the  top  of  his  voice 
some  old  cavalier  song,  as  if  to  let  the  country- 
side know  that  he  was  coming.  In  private  life 
Freeman  rather  avoided  Browning  as  an  affected 
and  eccentric  fop.  In  his  poetry  he  only  cared 
for   the   "Cavalier   Tunes." 

Kentish  Sir  Byng  stood  for  his  King, 
Bidding  the  crop-headed  Parliament  swing, 

was  a  special  favourite,  and  more  often  than 
anything  else  was  chanted  by  him  as  he  pursued 
his  lonely  way  under  the  shadow  of  the  Mendips. 
Another  Browning  sentiment,  "  I  was  ever  a 
fighter,"  might  have  also  fitted  Freeman.  In 
most  controversies  of  the  time,  from  the  Bul- 
garian atrocities  to  the  morality  of  fox-hunting, 
he  took  an  active  part  on  platform  or  with  pen, 
keeping  himself  well  in  evidence  on  every  possible 
occasion.  For  years,  as  he  put  it  to  a  Somer- 
setshire neighbour,  in  the  capacity  of  Saturday 
Review -QY,  he  was  "  haminering  the  books  of 
blockheads."  On  the  other  hand.  Bishop  Stubbs, 
of  whom  the  present  writer  cannot  speak  too 
appreciatively  or  gratefully,  was  always  the 
reserved  and  quiet  student,  never  avoidably 
asserting  his  opinion  or  authority,  neither  in  print. 
Parliament,  nor  private  gathering  volunteering 
a  word  that  was  not  really  worth  saying. 

340 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and   Forces 

*'  The  sailor's  rule  for  grog— three -fourths  spirit 
and  all  the  water  you  add  spoils  it  "—summed  up 
Froude's  advice,  when  editing  Fraser's  Magazine, 
to  all  contributors.  "The  closer  you  pack  the 
farther  you  can  go.  And  you  will  be  the  more 
effective  if  you  are  vicious  in  the  same  proportion 
as  you  are  short."  The  last  very  characteristic 
touch  contains  the  whole  secret  of  the  great  prose 
artist's  dealing  with  his  Carlylean  material.  To 
pass  from  professed  history  to  declared  fiction. 

As  for  the  nineteenth -century  masters  of  the 
English  novel  who  lived  into  my  time  I  can  only 
say  vldi  tantum,  except  in  the  case  of  the  first 
Lord  Lytton  and  Anthony  Trollope  ;  to  both  of 
those  memories  I  have  tried  at  some  length  to 
do  justice  elsewhere .  Thackeray  died  shortly  after 
my  undergraduate  days  had  begun.  That  my 
eyes  ever  rested  on  him  was  due  to  Tom  Hood, 
son  of  him  who  sang  "  The  Song  of  the  Shirt," 
during  the  years  when,  fresh  from  Oxford,  he  lived 
much  in  the  West  of  England,  and  stayed  con- 
stantly with  his  sister,  Mrs.  Broderip,  at  Cossing- 
ton  Rectory,  three  or  four  miles  from  Bridgwater. 
Hood  was  standing  on  the  steps  of  the  Clarence 
Hotel  in  that  town,  talking  to  a  stranger  who 
presently  left  him,  and  who,  as  he  afterwards 
told  me,  was  the  editor  of  the  Cornhlll,  then  very 
recently  started.     The  novelist,  it  seems,  thought 

341 


Great  Victorians 

of  buying  a  little  property  then  for  sale  in  or  near 
a  village  called  Ham,  on  the  spurs  of  the  Quan- 
tock  Hills.  The  purchase  was  never  made,  nor, 
from  what  I  afterwards  heard,  perhaps  ever 
seriously  entertained,  though  the  great  man  had 
long  liked  the  neighbourhood,  and  visited  it 
several  times  in  A.  W.  Kinglake's  company. 

Dickens,  like  Thackeray,  was  then  much  in 
request  at  great  country  houses,  where,  however, 
it  was  so  arranged  that  the  two  never  met.  The 
author  of  "  Pickwick "  was  a  difficult  guest  to 
secure,  and  all  the  stories  told  about  his  readiness 
to  associate  at  watering-places  or  elsewhere  with 
persons  having  any  kind  of  handle  to  their  name 
are  pure  inventions.  The  first  public  dinner  I 
ever  attended  was  the  send-off  banquet  to 
Dickens  under  Lord  Lytton's  presidency  in  Free- 
masons' Hall,  November  2,  1866.  The  chair- 
man's proposal  of  his  health,  the  toast  of  the 
evening,  contained  amid  its  compliments  some 
words  suggesting  that  Sir  Mulberry  Hawk  and 
Lord  Frederick  Verisopht  were  caricatures  rather 
than  sketches  from  life,  and  that  the  great 
novelist's  weakest  point,  perhaps,  might  be  seen 
in  his  few  delineations  of  fashionable  life  and 
its  characters.  This  brought  up  Dickens  himself, 
who,  with  a  perfectly  good  humour  and  show  of 
indignation,  wanted   (so  far  as  from  memory  I 

342 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and   Forces 

can  recall  the  exact  words )  to  know  what  amazing 
devil  had  instigated  his  noble  friend  to  recall  in 
connection  with  the  present  state  of  society  two 
obsolete  characters  drawn  more  than  a  quarter  of 
a  century  before. 

There  were  no  more  breezes  inside  the  building 
that  night.  At  Evans's  supper-rooms,  whither 
many  of  the  diners  soon  adjourned,  it  was  differ- 
ent. George  Augustus  Sala,  then  at  the  height 
of  his  Fleet  Street  fame,  had  been  one  of 
Dickens's  discoveries,  and  had  been  trained  by 
him  into  a  most  effective  all-round  writer.  For 
some  reason  Sala  had  been  dissatisfied  with  his 
great  master's  public  references  to  himself. 
Within  a  few  hours  of  the  dinner  being  over,  in 
the  cafe  part  of  the  supper -room  "  reserved  for 
conversation,"  he  gave,  from  his  own  point  of 
view,  an  account  of  his  relations  with  his  chief, 
and  of  what  he  held  to  be  that  chief's  obligation 
to  him  in  the  growth  of  his  fame.  Dickens,  of 
course,  was  told  about  the  escapade  by  a  little 
bird  ;  a  few  minutes  later  he  received  through  a 
common  friend  his  contributor's  expression  of 
regret  for  having  said  what  he  had  better  have 
left  unsaid.  *'  Dear  George,"  ran  Dickens's 
acknowledgment,  "  it  would  of  course  have  been 
better  so,  but  do  not  think  any  more  about  it." 

Dickens's  brains,  I  have  heard  it  said,  did  not 

343 


Great  Victorians 

prove  an  hereditary  possession  in  his  household. 
Not  perhaps  ahogether,  but  his  eldest  son's  ability 
showed  itself  in  the  conduct  of  Household  Words 
after  his  father's  death.  That  son's  eldest 
daughter,  Miss  Mary  Angela  Dickens,  has  shown 
herself  in  her  novels  at  least  as  much  an  instance 
of  heredity  as  was  Thackeray's  daughter,  the  late 
Lady  Ritchie.  Dickens'  sixth  son,  apart  from 
his  distinction  at  the  Bar,  can  reproduce,  upon 
occasions,  the  great  man's  graphic  attitude  of 
happy  phrase.  Thus  a  barrister  opposed  to  him, 
named  Willis,  was  irritating  him  and  the  court 
by  an  incessant  and,  as  it  seemed,  a  preventable 
little  cough.  At  last  he  quietly  remarked,  "  An 
illustrious  relative  of  mine  has  immortalized  the 
words  '  Barkis  is  willing  '  ;  perhaps  I  may  be 
allowed  in  present  circumstances  to  say  '  Willis 
is  barking.'  "  The  reader,  it  has  been  said, 
should  be  a  continuation  of  the  writer.  That, 
of  course,  explained  the  novelist's  success  on 
the  platform.  The  principle  itself  is  constantly 
being  illustrated  by  Mr.  H.  F.  Dickens,  K.C., 
in  the  assistance  he  gives  to  charities  by  his 
rendering  of  "  A  Christmas  Carol  "  or  other 
writings   of   the  same   deathless  genius. 

I  sat  only  twice  at  the  same  table  with  Dickens  ; 
once  on  the  public  occasion  now  recalled,  again 
at  the  historian.  Lord  Stanhope's,  in  Grosvenor 

344 


Mid-Victorian  Types  and   Forces 

Place,  where  he  had  been  asked  specially  to 
meet  Disraeli,  who  was  thus  also  present.  Some 
one  had  asked  the  future  Lord  Beaconsfield  whom 
he  considered  the  most  eloquent  speaker  he  had 
ever  heard.  After  some  little  reflection  came,  in 
a  deep  tone  of  sepulchral  solemnity,  the  reply, 
"  Daniel  Whittle  Harvey."  A  like  inquiry  was 
presently  addressed  to  Dickens,  as  to  who  struck 
him  as  the  best  of  all  after-dinner  orators.  With- 
out a  second's  hesitation  he  answered,  "  Pro- 
fessor John  Wilson  "  (the  "  Christopher  North  '* 
of  Blackwood's  Magazine).^ 

That  which  chiefly  struck  a  personal  stranger 
like  myself,  as  it  did  many  others,  in  the  great 
novelist,  was  first  his  power  of  teaching  apt  pupils 
the  technique  of  the  literary  craft ;  secondly,  the 
contagious  influence  on  them  of  his  own  social 
as  well  as  intellectual  idiosyncrasies.  The  effect 
of  Dickens's  Daily  News  editing  long  survived 
not  only  his  connection  with  the  paper  but  his 
existence.      It   was   not   limited  to    Dally  News 

^  The  experience  on  which  this  opinion  rested  was,  I  after- 
wards heard,  Wilson's  post-prandial  welcome  to  Dickens  in  the 
Waterloo  Rooms,  Edinburgh,  when  the  visitor,  acknowledging 
the  compliment  paid  to  his  creative  power,  unveiled  by  a  single 
autobiographic  touch  his  own  innermost  self.  "  I  feel  as  if  I 
stood  among  old  friends  whom  I  had  intimately  known  and 
highly  valued.  I  feel  as  if  the  death  of  the  fictitious  creatures 
in  whom  you  may  have  been  kind  enough  to  express  an  interest 
deepens  friendship,  just  as  real  afflictions  do  in  actual  life." 

345 


Great  Victorians 

writers,  but  was  shown  by  Dickens  men  like 
Edmund  Yates  equally  in  his  Morning  Star  con- 
tributions and  the  earlier  conduct  of  his  very 
successful  venture,  the  World.  Dickens,  as  one 
did  not  need  John  Korster's  biography  to  show, 
was  in  the  habit  of  calling  friends  like  Forster 
and  others  into  his  confidence,  not  less  on  the 
development  of  the  plot  and  personalities  of  his 
novels  than  the  management  of  his  magazines. 
Edmund  Yates  did  exactly  the  same,  sometimes 
with  consequences  less  than  just  to  him'self .  For 
when  I  first  knew  him  in  his  comparatively  early 
stage  of  novelist,  Mrs.  Cashel  Hoey  was  a  regular 
figure  at  his  councils  of  friends.  Herself  an 
expert  in  fiction,  she  suggested  many  improve- 
ments in  the  stories  which  he  used  to  read  aloud 
specially.  Hence  it  went  about  that  "  Broken 
to  Harness,"  "  Black  Sheep,"  and  others  were 
not  really  by  their  reputed  author,  but  by  his 
Egeria.  This  was  pure  fable,  because  Yates, 
with  his  really  fine  brains  and  trained  powers  of 
observation,  always  showed  himself  quick  enough 
to  take  a  hint,  but  had  never  the  slightest  need 
of  looking  to  other  brickfields  for  his  clay. 

With  the  exception  of  Mr.  Percy  Fitzgerald, 
Yates  was  the  adroitest  performer  in  the 
Dickensian  style,  not  only  of  writing  but  of 
platform     speaking    and     private     conversation. 

346 


Mid- Victorian  Types  and  Forces 

Like  his  master,  one  of  the  most  hospitable  of 
men,  he  had  a  curious  fondness  for  reminding  the 
world  of  his  existence.  The  guests  at  his 
Thames -side  parties  used  to  say  that  their  host 
would  have  enjoyed  himself  more  than  he  visibly 
did  had  the  steam  launch  on  which  he  feted  them 
so  pleasantly  been  preceded  by  some  pilot  craft 
blazoned  with  the  announcement,  *'  Yates  is 
coming."  As  a  notoriety  lover,  however,  he  was 
outdone  by  his  journalistic  colleague  first,  his 
rival  afterwards,  Henry  Labouchere.  Many 
of  his  best  stories  were  told  against  himself  for 
no  other  reason  than  that  of  heightening  their 
sensational  interest. i 

The  Thames  during  the  early  eighties  was  the 
most  cosmopolitan  of  streams,  for  in  the  Twicken- 
ham district  one  left  the  Laboucherian  gatherings 
at  Pope's  Villa  to  be  sure  of  meeting  persons 
perhaps    more    instructive,    and    often    not    less 

^  These  anecdotes  were  chiefly  burlesques  of  the  commercial 
success  that  had  transformed  his  father  and  uncle  from  mere  men 
of  business  into  territorial  magnates.  During  his  early  House  of 
Commons  days,  one  of  his  constituents  came  up  to  him  in  the 
Lobby  full  of  congratulatory  admiration  for  a  speech  he  had  just 
heard  his  father  deliver  in  the  House  of  Lords.  "  My  father  !  " 
rejoined  "  Labby."  "  You  have  relieved  me  very  much.  For  my 
father  has  been  dead  twenty  years;  the  family  were  getting 
anxious  about  him,  and  would  be  glad  to  know  he  is  in  such 
a  good  place."  (The  supposed  father  was,  of  course,  the  uncle, 
Henry  Labouchere  the  first.) 

347 


Great  Victorians 

amusing,  at  Grant-Duff's  Orleans  House.  Here 
the  great  object  of  the  host's  oratorical  admira- 
tion, the  Spanish  statesman  and  speaker,  Emilio 
Castelar,  happened  at  last  to  be  paying  a  visit 
on  his  way  home  after  a  little  tour  in  Ireland, 
especially  Galway.  The  town  of  Galway  itself 
has  never  lost  the  signs  of  its  Spanish  associa- 
tions since  the  defeat  of  the  Great  Armada  at 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Its  mayor,  at 
the  time  of  Castelar's  visit,  prided  himself  on  the 
Spanish  blood  in  his  veins  and  his  command  of 
the  Spanish  language.  At  a  dinner  to  Castelar 
he  insisted  on  proposing  the  guest's  health  in 
what  he  considered  the  Castilian  tongue.  The 
illustrious  visitor  sat  silent  and  impassive 
throughout  the  performance ;  at  its  close  he 
got  up  and,  in  the  little  English  he  could  com- 
mand, expressed  his  deep  regret  that  he  had  not 
been  long  enough  in  the  British  Isles  to  under- 
stand the  words  of  the  gentleman  who  had  just 
sat  down,  or  to  thank  his  good  friend,  as  he 
should  like  to  have  done,  in  his  native  tongue. 


348 


CHAPTER    XI 

ROYALTIES,    COURTIERS,   AND   STATESMEN 
AT   WORK 

How  and  when  the  country  first  knew  the  Prince  Consort — 
The  opinion  formed  of  him  by  his  representative  contem- 
poraries— His  services  to  the  Duchy  of  Cornwall  during  the 
minority  of  the  Prince  of  Wales — His  Cornwall  and  Devon- 
shire excursions — Royalty  and  Devonshire  cream  at  a  Dart- 
side  vicarage — The  Prince  Consort's  legacy  to  his  son  and 
grandson — Greek  art  and  literature  at  Marlborough  House 
— King  Edward  VII  as  an  Oxford  and  Cambridge  under- 
graduate— "  Oh  !  ruddier  than  the  cherry  "  in  Canterbury 
Quad — Greek  lexicon- making  on  the  eve  of  the  Prince's 
residence — H.  G.  Liddell,  of  Christ  Church — Robert  Scott, 
of  Balliol — Oxford  and  Cambridge  influences  on  the  culture 
of  the  coming  King — J.  E.  Thorold  Rogers  on  the  Oxford 
Dictionary — The  Royal  fashion  of  hard  work  healthily 
infectious — How  Lord  Goschen  mastered  the  art  and 
details  of  naval  administration  in  a  fortnight  —  Lord 
Hartington  in  his  shirt-sleeves  at  Devonshire  House  ad- 
ministering India,  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  Sunday 
morning  church  bells,  with  the  occasional  refreshment  of 
a  visitor  and  of  the  Binomial  Theorem — Statesmen  of  the 
Churchill  line,  from  Bismarck  to  Winston — How  Uncle 
Salisbury  and  the  great  Elizabethan  Cecils  live  again  in 
Mr.  Arthur  Balfour — The  first  Marquis  of  Abergavenny — 
How,  with  Lord  Beaconsfield  and  Markham  Spofforth  as 
his  "  man-of-all-work  "  he  recreated  the  Conservative  Party 
349 


Great  Victorians 

and  brought  it  to  victory  in  1874 — The  first  Lord  Burnham, 
being  also  the  first  of  all  modern  newspaper  men — The  first 
Lord  Rothschild  of  fact  and  fiction — Lord  Rothschild  and 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill  on  double  surnames. 

Throughout  the  earlier  period  covered  by  this 
volume,  English  attention,  to  a  degree  not 
perhaps  now  easily  realized,  fixed  itself  on  the 
Prince  Consort.  By  an  accident,  now  to  be  re- 
called, I  once  found  myself  in  his  presence. 
My  real  knowledge  of  him  came  from  well-known 
men,  especially  in  the  South  and  West  of 
England,  often  as  the  Queen's  ministers  in  atten- 
dance at  Balmoral  or  Windsor,  and  at  other  times 
his  colleagues  in  the  various  undertakings  which, 
more  than  anything  else,  gradually  enabled  the 
country  to  set  a  true  value  on  his  worth.  The 
best  personal  records  of  the  Prince  are  the 
addresses  of  condolence  to  his  widow  from  the 
local  bodies  to  which  he  had  been  a  familiar 
figure,  and  various  distinguished  individuals  to 
whom  he  often  talked  without  restraint.  Such 
opinions  as  these  I  was  much  in  the  way  of 
hearing  on  their  first  expression,  and,  as  they 
are  not  without  permanent  interest,  may  briefly 
recall  now.  He  had  died  at  Windsor  just  before 
midnight  on  the  14th  of  December,  1861.  By 
the  early  spring  of  the  next  year  the  best  known 
Englishmen  of  their  generation,  speaking  some- 
times as  county  Lords -Lieutenant,  sometimes  as 

350 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

Chairmen  of  Quarter  Sessions,  took  the  first  step 
towards  supplying  from  their  own  experience 
authentic  materials  for  a  lifelike  portrait  of  the 
Prince.  The  points  on  which  the  best  informed 
of  these  dwelt  were  the  intellectual  force  of  his 
character  and  his  faculty  of  self-restraint.  No 
one  illustrated  these  traits  with  more  graceful 
effect  than  the  fourth  Earl  of  Carnarvon,  in  the 
County  Hall  at  Winchester.  "  It  is  the  Prince  to 
the  life,"  was  the  comment  of  the  Laureate,  then 
plain  Alfred  Tennyson,  as  I  stood  at  his  side  in 
that  building,  intent  upon  each  touch  of  the 
word  picture.  Prince  Albert  had  first  visited 
the  West  of  England  during  a  tour  with  the 
Queen.  Afterwards  he  personally  examined  the 
estates  of  the  Duchy  of  Cornwall,  and  their 
management  by  the  Council  responsible  for  them 
during  the  minority  of  his  eldest  son.  His 
Cornish  visits  were  sometimes  varied  by  excur- 
sions into  Devonshire.  While  on  one  of  these, 
chance  brought  him  to  a  Vicarage  in  that  portion 
of  the  county  watered  by  the  river  Dart.  The 
stream  reminded  him,  in  parts,  of  the  Rhine, 
in  its  sudden  bends  and  picturesque  convolutions 
from  the  "  Anchor  Stone  "  to  Dartington.  On 
its  banks  he  initiated  himself  into  the  mysteries 
of  Devonshire  cream -making,  not  without  an 
idea,  as  he  said,  that  the  rich  Berkshire  pastures 
might  make  it  possible  to  reproduce  the  industry 

351 


Great  Victorians 

on  the  royal  demesnes.  Those  with  whom,  in 
this  part  of  the  world,  the  Prince  talked  found 
him  unaffected  and  agreeable  if  the  subject  really 
interested  him,  and  saw  nothing  whatever  of  the 
curt  pomposity  and  the  much  lied  about  petty 
Prussian  despotism,  making,  as  was  said,  the  lives 
of  so  many  Court  ladies  a  burden  to  them.  The 
way  in  which  I  once  found  myself  in  the  Prince's 
presence  was  as  follows.  I  was  staying  near 
Totnes  with  a  family  friend,  a  great  authority  on 
the  geology  of  the  whole  country  between  the 
Dart  and  Land's  End.  One  day,  when  about 
tOi  sit  down  to  luncheon,  we  were  all  fluttered  by 
the  rumour  of  a  royal  invasion  as  possible.  The 
Queen's  husband  had  already  entered  the  village 
and  enquired  for  the  Vicarage,  with  further 
questions  about  the  dairy  farm  and  its  grounds. 
The  Vicar  himself  met  the  illustrious  visitor 
on  the  front  lawn,  upon  which  the  dining- 
room  windows  opened .  Before  any  of  us,  I  think, 
knew  exactly  how  it  had  happened,  "  Albert  the 
Good  "  had  seated  himself  at  the  table  before  a 
knife  and  plate.  The  stony  silence  in  which 
at  first  we  sat  seemed  painfully  long  ;  but  we 
knew  it  was  a  high  offence  to  take  the  con- 
versational initiative  in  such  august  company. 
At  last  one  of  the  daughters  of  the  house,  a 
bright^  high-spirited  girl,  decided  that  the  time 

352 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

had  come  to  break  the  ice.  Would  his  Royal 
Highness  take  some  more  clotted  cream  with  his 
raspberry  and  currant  tart  ?  We  were  all,  I 
remember,  relieved  to  find  a  violation  of  Court 
etiquette  had  been  taken  so  graciously.  The  dairy 
farm  was  duly  visited  before  his  Royal  Highness 
went  his  way,  as  we  afterwards  heard,  to  Mount 
Edgcumbe.  Here  the  story  of  the  little  incident 
just  recorded  had  preceded  him.  The  insight, 
however,  acquired  by  him  into  the  local  farm 
industries  came  as  a  surprise  even  to  those  whose 
experience  of  his  methods  in  the  Duchy  of  Corn- 
wall business  had  acquainted  them  with  his  rare 
aptitude  for  accurately  observing  and  mastering 
fresh  details,  whether  in  great  matters  or  small. 
The  present,  the  fourth,  Earl  of  Moimt  Edg- 
cumbe, then  Lord  Valletort,  had  not  himself  a 
place  in  the  Council  of  the  Duchy  of  Cornwall 
till  1889.  As  regards  the  Prince,  however,  he 
had  other  opportunities  of  noticing  in  all  the 
varied  activities  of  his  station  the  imion  of  moral 
and  intellectual  qualities  which  formed  his  dis- 
tinctive characteristic,  and  which  those  who  knew 
him  best  aptly  indicated  by  the  single  word 
**  judgment."  This  was  the  faculty,  as  those 
surrounding  him  saw^  that,  to  quote  from  memory 
the  conversation  of  Lord  Carnarvon,  Charles 
Kingsle,y,,  and  Bishop  Wilberforoe,  **  enabled  the 

353  z 


Great  Victorians 

Prince  in  the  conscious  plenitude  of  his  own 
mental  strength  to>  tie  down  and  restrain  that 
vigour  to  the  strict  and  careful  observance  of 
constitutional  practice  and  duty." 

Prince  Albert's  power  of  withdrawing  his  mind 
from  the  distractions  of  daily  life  and  fixing  it 
on  new  and  complicated  details  till  he  had 
thoroughly  mastered  them  was^  as  I  can  say  from 
practical  experience,  fully  bequeathed  by  him  to 
his  eldest  son ;  it  may^  indeed,  now  be  con- 
sidered the  family  gift  of  the  reigning  House. 
During  the  summer  of  1885  there  appeared  in  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  then  conducted  by  me,  an 
article  by  the  fanuous  Greek  scholar  R.  C.  Jebb, 
advocating  the  foundation  at  Athens  of  a  school 
of  classical  studies,  that  might  also,  to  some 
extent,  be  a  social  centre  for  cultivated  English- 
men on  their  travels  in  Eastern  Europe.  The 
then  Prince  of  Wales  was  brother-in-law  to  the 
King  of  Greece,  and  for  other  reasons,  im- 
mediately to  be  explained,  was  predisposed  to 
take  an  active  interest  in  the  project.  The  good 
offices  of  Sir  Francis,  now  Viscount,  Knollys 
secured  his  attention  to  the  Fortnightly  article. 
With  his  accustomed  kindness  he  gave  more  than 
one  interview  to  Sir  R.  C.  Jebb  and  myself, 
receiving  at  the  last  of  these  the  further  facts 
and  figures  supplementary  to  the  printed  matter, 

354 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

and  fully  setting  forth  the  origin,  the  progress, 
and  the  proposed  future  organization  of  the 
idea.  As  a  result  he  convened  a  meeting  at 
Marlborough  House.  This  was  attended  by,  the 
most  distinguished  representatives  of  State, 
Church,  scholarship,  and  learning.  The  Heir- 
apparent  opened  the  proceedings  with  an  account 
of  their  object,  its  requirements,  difficulties,  and 
the  international  advantages  not  unlikely  to  attend 
it.  Jebb  was  called  upon  to  elucidate  a  few 
points,  not,  as  he  was  constrained  at  the  outset 
to  remark,  an  easy  task,  because  his  Royal 
Highness  had  studied  the  data  pressed  before 
him  so  thoroughly^  and  had  assimilated  them  so 
completely,  as  practically  to  have  exhausted  the 
subject  in  his  own  remarks.  That  would  have 
been  a  noticeable  performance  for  any  of  the 
busy  and  preoccupied  personages  at  the 
Marlborough  House  gathering  to  have  accom- 
plished after  two  or  three  days'  preparation. 
Achieved  by  one  having  so  few  hours  or  minutes 
to  call  his  own,  in  the  height  of  the  London 
season,  it  formed  a  feat  extraordinarily  significant 
of  his  power  of  intellectual  concentration. 

The  Prince's  prompt  felicity  in  handling  the 
subject  may  be  explained  in  part  by  his  frequent 
conversations  with  some  of  those  who  were 
among  the  most  picturesque  or  prominent  per- 

355 


Great  Victorians 

sonages  on  the  Isis  during  his  short  residence 
in  the  place,  not  his  contemporaries  but  the 
representatives  of  an  older  generation.  Of  the 
former,  one,  then  Smith  Barry,  of  Christ  Church 
(now  Lord  Barrymore),  lingered  on  at  Oxford 
or  frequently  revisited  it  in  my  time.  His 
intimacy  with  the  future  Edward  VII  began  after 
he  had  **  gone  down,"  and  according  to  the  old 
story,  grew  out  of  his  horse  in  Rotten  Row 
having  cannoned  against  the  Heir-apparent  and, 
indeed,  upset  him.  The  chief  member  of  the 
peerage  at  Oxford  with  the  Prince  was  the  Duke 
of  Hamilton,  then  a  lusty,  red-faced,  red-haired 
youth,  not  taken  as  seriously  as  he  might  have 
wished  by  his  fellow -undergraduates  of  title. 
These,  indeed,  had  a  way,  little  to  his  taste,  of 
serenading  him  at  his  rooms  near  Canterbury 
Gate  with  improvised  instruments  of  music  to 
the  accompaniment  of  the  old  English  catch, 
**  Oh  I  ruddier  than  the  cherry." 

The  most  intellectually  impressive  among 
Oxford  residents  in  the  Prince's  time,  as  they 
continued  to  be  several  years  later  in  mine,  were 
H.  G.  Liddell,  Dean  of  Christ  Church,  A.  P. 
Stanley  (not  Dean  of  Westminster  till  1863), 
Robert  Scott,  not  then  superseded  in  the  Balliol 
mastership  by  Jowett,  Goldwin  Smith,  J.  E. 
Thorold  Rogers  and  Robinson  Duckworth,  after- 
wards Canopn  of  Westminster.     Among  all  these 

356 


Royalties,   Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

tihe  future  King  became  far  the  best  known  to 

Goldwin  Smith,  then  Regius  Professor  of  History, 

whose  tall,  dark  figure,  as  he  rode  his  tired  horse 

slowly  over    Magdalen    Bridge    and   dismounted 

at  University  College  steps,  may  have  reminded 

the   Prince    as    well    as   others    of   Don   Quixote 

steering  the  exhausted   Rosinante   to   the   stable 

after  a  day's  knight-errantry  among  the  Canta- 

brian  mountains.      Occasionally   too,    before   he 

**  went  down,"   the  Prince  caught  a  glimpse  of 

the  gifted  Wadham  ^roup,  whose  most  famous 

member,     Frederic     Harrison,     had     not     then 

become  identified  with  the  philosophy  of  Auguste 

Comte,    but    whose    Radicalism,    before    he    left 

Oxford,  had  been  much  influenced  by  Bridges, 

Lushington,  W.  L.  Newman,  Bowen  of  Balliol, 

by    Miss    Martineau,   and   in    Italy   by    Mazzini. 

Whatever    the    effect   on    Oxford   of    Harrison's 

democratic  ideas  or  speculative  enthusiasms,  no 

one  doubts  that  the  clear  and  simple  brilliancy  of 

his  prose  style  educated  the  best  Oxford  bends 

for  the  greater  part  of  two  generations.     From 

Liddell  the  Prince  heard  how  the  famous  Greek 

Lexicon^  had  been  written   in   conjunction  with 

^  People   still   repeated   then   the   doggerel   about   the  great 
work  : — 

This  Lexicon  now  by  Liddell  and  Scott, 
Some  of  it's  good  and  some  of  it's  not. 
Solve  me,  I  pray  you,  this  difficult  riddle — 
What  of  it's  Scott  and  what  of  it's  Liddell  ? 

357 


Great  Victorians 

Scott.  The  modus  operandi,  as  described  by 
the  Dean  to  the  Prince,  was  this  :  Every  day, 
between  5  and  6  p.m.,  Liddell  would  come  to 
Balliol  from  Christ  Church,  and  at  once  make  for 
Scott's  rooms  in  Potter's  buildings.  There  the 
two  worked  together  till  midnight.  The  work 
had  begun  in  1833;  after  ten  years,  the  first 
edition  came  out  in  1843.  But  the  fifth  edition, 
really  constituting  the  volume  as  it  is  known 
to-day,  did  not  appear  till  eighteen  years  later, 
1 861.  With  Duckworth,  the  pleasantest  and 
most  polished  of  Oxford  courtiers,  the  Prince  met 
not  only  Goldwin  Smitih  but  Thorold  Rogers,  some 
of  whose  pungent  criticisms  he  never  forgot .  The 
latest,  however,  and  perhaps  the  best,  of  Rogers's 
good  things  was  reserved  till  a  much  later  date, 
being  called  forth  by  the  question  asked  him  : 
**  What  would  Samuel  Johnson  have  said  had 
he  been  foretold  of  his  lexicon  being  edited  by 
a  Scotsman?"  "His  words,"  replied  Rogers, 
'*  would  have  been  to  this  effect :  *  Sir,  to  be 
facetious  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  indecent.'  " 
The  Prince,  it  has  been  seen,  owed  his 
introduction  to  Hellenic  archaeology  or  art  to 
the  personal  influences  under  which  he  came  in 
his  undergraduate  days .  At  Oxford  he  had  been 
disappointed  at  hearing  less  thaai  he  had  expected 
about  the  old  Greek  paintings.     At  Cambridge, 

358 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

however,  he  had  learned  from  Charles  Kingsley, 
then  a  Professor,  something  definite  about  Greek 
and  Byzantine  architecture  and  statuary.  His 
acquaintance  with  the  Cambridge  Kingsley  and 
the  Oxford  Bishop  Wilberforce  grew  in  intimacy 
until  their  deaths.  They  were  both  constant 
visitors  at  Sandringham,  and  were  frequently 
consulted  by  their  host  about  his  sons.  They 
each  formed  the  same  opinion  of  the  younger, 
the  future  George  V,  and  foresaw  at  a  very  early 
age  the  progressive  growth  of  the  qualities  which 
have  since  distinguished  alike  the  sovereign  and 
his  reign.  Heredity  is  a  word  not  so  often  on 
the  lips  of  men  in  those  days  as  it  has  since 
become,  but  in  conversation,  specially  with  the 
future  Dean  Stanley,  Kingsley  and  Wilberforce 
both  spoke  of  the  then  Prince  George's  mental 
ballast  as  in  the  first  place  a  heritage  from  his 
grandfather. 

Such  an  equilibrium,  they  agreed,  will  descend 
as  a  Saxe-Coburg  bequest  to  the  Royal  posterity 
in  the  same  way  that  successive  generations 
have  bequeathed  to  each  other  the  cleverness 
of  the  Plantagenets  or  that  the  Royal  physi- 
ognomy of  to-day  shows  the  fullness  on  the 
right  side  of  the  lower  face  which  is  an 
inheritance  from  the  Stuarts.  Concerning  the 
moral  attributes  reviewed  by  these  shrewd  judges 

359 


Great  Victorians 

of  character,  as  it  was  with  the  Prince  Consort's 
son  and  grandson,  so  it  is  with  the  Prince  of 
Wales  of  to-day.  Unwearied  drudgery  in  details, 
it  was  a  Victorian  Court  saying,  marked  all  the 
Royal  Family  from  the  Queen  downward.  '*  The 
Duke  of  Cambridge,"  once  said  to  me  General 
Macdonald  ("  Rim  "  Macdonald),  '*  is  the  hardest 
worker  in  all  the  Army,  and  (let  him  do  things 
in  his  own  way)  the  most  successful."  The 
Duke's  description  of  a  nineteenth  and  twentieth 
century  sovereign—'*  the  nation's  universal  and 
permanent  Secretary  of  State  "—was  sometimes 
on  King  Edward's  lips  ;  it  will  probably  not  be 
strange  to  his  successor. 

Throughout  the  Victorian  age,  naturally  more 
than  in  earlier  periods  of  our  political  history. 
Parliament  men  for  the  most  part  made  their 
earliest  mark,  not  by  the  excellence  of  their  set 
speeches  or  even  their  skill  in  debate,  but  by 
their  thoroughness  in  the  mastery  at  short  notice 
of  complicated  subjects  and  branches  of  public 
business  entirely  new  to  them.  Two  instances 
of  this  during  the  Gladstonian  period  especially 
impressed  the  Court  as  well  as  the  country. 
During  the  second  week  of  March  1871  the 
future  Lord  Goschen,  a  complete  stranger  to 
the  department,  became  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty.     Two   or   three    weeks   later   he   ex- 

360 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

plained  the  naval  estimates  in  a  speech  of  two 
hours,  so  clear,  convincing,  and  so  skilfully 
arranged  that  the  men  who  had  heard  Peel's 
and  Gladstone's  Budgets  murmured  their  praise, 
and  that  the  Duke  of  Edinburgh,  who,  with  his 
eldest  brother,  had  come  to  St.  Stephen's  for 
the  occasion,  congratulated  the  speaker  in  the 
lobby.  The  other  instance  to  be  mentioned  was 
of  an  entirely  different  kind,  though  not  less 
striking  in  its  way.  A  month  later,  March  30th, 
Sir  Charles  Dilke,  then  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
eight,  independent  Radical  Member  for  Chelsea, 
brought  in  a  motion  condemning  the  Liberal 
Government  for  agreeing  to  the  Black  Sea 
Conference  under  the  conditions  which  then 
existed.  Each  successive  point  of  the  speech 
was  strengthened  by  dates  and  quotations  that 
only  a  consummate  master  of  his  subject  could 
have  handled  without  coming  to  grief.  On  this 
occasion,  too,  the  future  Edward  VII  had  taken 
his  place  in  the  Peers'  Gallery.  His  comment  on 
the  speech  showed  alike  the  closeness  of  his 
attention  and  the  thorough  competence  of  his 
opinion :  *'  It  comes  too  late  to  be  a  parlia- 
mentary success,  but  it  marks  out  the  man  who 
made  it  as  an  international  critic  destined  to  rise 
high  in  his  party  and  in  the  House."  Lord 
Goschen,   first  introduced  to  the   Prince   at   the 

361 


Great  Victorians 

Duke  of  Fife*s  dinner-table,  made  no  pretence 
of  being  himself  a  Gladstonian.  As  he  often 
put  it,  he  saw  in  his  chief  one  intended  by  Nature 
less  for  a  statesman  than  a  poet  and  perhaps 
theologian.  Lord  Goschen,  however,  resembled 
Gladstone  in  his  gift  of  turning  private  secretaries 
and  other  understrappers  into  independent  poli- 
ticians of  the  first  order.  He  performed  that 
feat  most  signally  in  the  case  of  Lord  Milner, 
whose  brilliant  reputation  so  dazzled  the  Balliol 
of  his  day  that  it  could  not  fully  see  the  full 
promise  of  Mr.  Asquith,  the  young  man  whom 
Jowett  predicted  would  go  far  because  he  knew 
exactly  what  he  wanted  and  resolved  to  get 
it,  but  of  whom  Mr.  Gladstone,  when  asked 
whether  he  would  ever  lead  the  party,  shook 
his  head  and  significantly  murmured,  "  Too 
forensic." 

The  two  members  of  the  Gladstonian  Cabinet 
who  had  most  of  each  other's  confidence  were 
Lord  Goschen  and  Lord  Hartington.  The  future 
ninth  Duke  of  Devonshire  tempered  his  aristo- 
cratic Whig  instincts  with  some  popular  sen- 
timents, or  at  least  phrases,  faithfully  reflecting 
a  good-humoured  contempt  for  those  not  bom 
into  his  own  governing  class.  During  the 
eighties  something  was  said  about  closing  the 
Park  on  Sundays  to  different  kinds  of  meetings. 

362 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

"  Really,"  was  the  then  Lord  Hartington's 
deliverance,  *'  I  don't  see  how  you  can  open  the 
Park  every  week-day  to  a  mob  of  well-dressed 
people  and  shut  it  up  in  the  face  of  a  less  well- 
dressed  mob  on  Sundays."  As  leader  in  the 
Commons  from  1875,  Hartington  was  far  more  of 
a  political  grand  seigneur  than  he  ever  seemed 
after  coming  to  his  full  title.  During  the  pre- 
ducal  days,  as  seven  o'clock  approached  a  liveried 
horseman  was  seen  by  an  expectant  crowd  gal- 
loping out  of  Parliament  Square  towards  Picca- 
dilly. It  was  one  of  the  Cavendish  retainers 
hurrying  to  Devonshire  House  with  the  news 
that  the  Marquis  might  be  expected  home  any 
moment  for  his  dinner. 

On  his  becoming,  in  1883,  Secretary  for  India, 
Sir  Louis  Mallet  and  the  other  permanent  officials 
spoke  of  it  as  a  calamity  that  the  control  of  the 
department  should  pass  to  a  man  of  pleasure  and 
a  sportsman  like  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  eldest 
son.  Very  shortly  they  found  that  their  new 
chief  was  also  the  hardest  worker  whom  they  had 
known  for  many  a  long  day.  Every  Sunday 
morning  the  Secretary  of  State,  always  in  his 
shirt -sleeves,  settled  down  to  his  papers,  and  inter- 
viewed successively  those  of  his  staff  whom  he 
wished  to  see  and  any  others  whom  he  cared  to 
receive.    Amongst  those  I  happened,  in  the  year 

363 


Great  Victorians 

1885,  to  be  one.  I  found  him  in  his  Piccadilly 
home,  in  his  room  on  the  ground  floor  a  little 
to  the  right  after  entering.  A  deputation  of  some 
kind  had  just  left  him  ;  he  seemed  to  be  em- 
ploying the  short  interval  between  his  reception 
of  visitors  and  reading  of  papers  by  scribbling 
on  one  piece  of  paper  and  occasionally  munch- 
ing other  pieces  in  his  mouth.  *'  I  was,"  he  ex- 
plained, laying  down  his  pen  when  he  saw 
me,  *'  amusing  myself  by  trying  to  write  out  the 
Binomial  Theorem ;  I  think  I  have  forgotten 
something;  perhaps  you  can  put  it  right."  I 
regretted  to  say  I  could  not. 

Professor  Liveing,  who  filled  the  Cambridge 
Chair  of  Chemistry,  somewhat  Lord  Hartington's 
senior,  once  told  me  that  the  head  of  the  India 
Office,  as  he  then  was,  had  a  true  Yorkshireman's 
head,  not  only  for  everything  which  concerned 
the  horse,  but  for  facts,  figures,  and  puzzling 
details  of  every  kind.  His  tutor  at  Trinity,  John 
Cooper,  afterwards  Vicar  of  Kendal  and  Arch- 
deacon of  Westmorland,  bore  emphatic  testimony 
in  the  same  direction.  "But  for  his  station, 
his  wealth,  and  his  countless  preoccupied  in- 
terests, there  was  scarcely  any  distinction  in 
the  mathematical  tripos,"  said  this  gentleman, 
"  which  Lord  Hartington's  very  exceptional  brain 
power,  scientific  aptitude,  extraordinary  power  of 

364 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

self-adaptation,  and  of  concentrated  industry 
might  not  have   placed   within  his  reach." 

The  branch  of  the  public  service  on  which 
Lord  Hartington  left  the  mgst  enduring  mark 
is  the  Army.  In  1888  his  commission  on  naval 
and  military  administration  suggested  that  the 
control  of  the  Army,  divided  between  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  and  the  Commander-in-Chief,  should 
be  replaced  by  the  supreme  authority  of  a  single 
Cabinet  minister.  Even  then,  however,  fifteen 
years  had  to  pass  before,  in  1904,  Lord  Esher's 
Committee  endorsed  the  recommendation.  It  then 
received  full  effect.  The  Commandership-in- 
Chief  ceased  to  exist ;  a  Chief  of  the  General 
Staff  ruled  in  his  stead.  The  official  whose  name 
immediately  connects  itself  with  this  change.  Lord 
Esher^  had  been  for  seven  years  (1878-85)  Lord 
Hartington's  private  secretary,  and  a  character- 
istic product  of  Eton  and  Cambridge  culture,  as 
well  as  a  finished  link  connecting  the  Court  and 
courtiership  of  the  Victorian  age  with  those  of 
the  two  reigns  that  have  followed  since. 

Among  the  great  political  Victorians,  the  first 
Lord  Goschen  outlived  Mr.  Gladstone  by  nine 
years,  Lord  Hartington,  as  Duke  of  Devonshire, 
by  ten.  *'  The  old  man  in  a  hurry,"  as,  in  refer- 
ence to  Home  Rule,  Lord  Randolph  Churchill 
called    the    Liberal    leader,    survived    Churchill 

36s 


Great  Victorians 

himself,  but  did  not  live  to  see  his  son  repre- 
senting his  third  constituency. i  Prince  Bismarck 
had  something  to  say  about  the  difficulty  with 
which  he  had  trained  himself  from  being  merely 
a  "  bundle  of  nerves  "  into  the  '*  man  of  blood 
and  iron."  In  some  respects  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill  began  where  his  father  left  off  and 
showed  a  knowledge  and  a  solidity  with  which 
Lord  Randolph  never  troubled  himself,  if  for 
no  other  reason  than  his  not  thinking  it  suitable 
to  the  character  in  which  he  first  made  his  public 
mark  .2  Whether,  in  achieving  this  development, 
he  may  or  may  not  have  consciously  contended 
against  any  of  the  Bismarckian  difficulties, 
among  his  father's  contemporaries  there  are 
some  who  will  recollect  his  early  days  at  a  pre- 
paratory school  near  Brighton.  From  this,  one 
half-holiday,   he  was   brought,   as   a   very   small 

»  Winston  Churchill  became  M.P.  for  Oldham  in  1900,  North- 
West  Manchester  in  1906,  and  Dundee  in  1908. 

»  "Blue  Book  speeches,"  he  said,  "are  not  in  my  line,  and 
if  I  tried  them  nobody  would  attend  to  them."  Randolph 
Churchill,  however,  had  great  power  of  getting  up  a  subject,  as 
he  showed  when  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  after  having  once 
mastered  the  mystery  of  decimal  points.  Possessing  an  excep- 
tionally good  memory,  he  had  never  been  much  of  a  reader,  and 
only  made  the  acquaintance  of  Disraeli's  novels  in  the  latter  part 
of  his  short  life,  about  the  same  time  that  a  chance  quotation 
from  that  work  made  him  brush  up  his  half-forgotten  Greek 
enough  to  read  in  the  original  a  good  deal  of  Aristotle's 
"Politics." 

366 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

boy,  by  the  late  Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff 
for  lunch  to  the  now  extinct  Orleans  Club  at 
Brighton.  He  said  nothing  till,  at  the  end  of 
the  meal,  his  father's  friends  engaged  him  in 
a  little  conversation.  Then,  in  tones  surpris- 
ingly deep  for  one  of  such  tender  age,  and  with 
something  oracular  in  his  manner,  he  fixed  our 
attention  by  these  words  :  **  They  all  tell  me 
I  am  a  remarkably  nervous  child." 

Circumstances  quickened  and  prolonged  the 
rivalry  inevitable  between  two  men  of  the  same 
age,  antecedents,  and  parliamentary  standing  as 
Randolph  Churchill  and  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour. 
Of  these  competitors  the  former  had  scarcely 
passed  away  when  his  son  stepped  forth  to  renew 
an  hereditary  antagonism  and  to  take  up  the 
dropped  stitches  of  his  father's  career.  The 
Mr.  Balfour  of  those  day^  has  been  altogether 
outgrown  by  the  Admiralty  First  Lord  of  the 
existing  Coalition,  a  Balfour  in  name  only,  in 
breadth  of  shoulders,  thickness  of  frame, 
heaviness  of  jaw,  and  proportions  of  forehead  a 
Cecil  marvellously  recalling,  not  only  his  illus- 
trious uncle,  but  that  relative's  Elizabethan 
ancestors  as  from  their  picture  frames  they  look 
down  upon  the  neo  -  Georgian  Hatfield.  Mr. 
Gladstone's  posthumous  influence  upon  the  new 
Georgian  age  has  been  personified  less   in  the 

367 


Great  Victorians 

Palace  of  Westminster  than  in  its  official  environs . 
Of  the  twoi  Treasury  officials  most  expert  in 
Gladstone's  methods  and  most  after  his  heart, 
after  Lord  Welby  had  gone,  Sir  Charles  Rivers 
Wilson  (since  dead)  for  a  time  connected  the 
finalice  of  the  old  exclusive  order  with  that  of 
the  new  democratic  regime,  under  which  Bonar 
Law,  Chamberlain,  and  Simon  will  hereafter  be 
looked  back  upon  as  the  founders  of  political 
families  that  are,  under  George  V,  what  the  Whit- 
breads  and  the  Rathbones  were  under  Queen 
Victoria,  or  had  been  during  the  two  previous 
reigns.  Both  Mr.  Gladstone's  old  pupils  and 
assistants,  the  controllers  respectively  of  the 
London  County  Council's  Exchequer  and  the 
National  Debt  Office,  outlived  by  nearly  a  year 
another  well-known  representative  of  the  High 
Secretariat.  Sir  Bruce  Maxwell -Set  on,  the 
kindest,  gentlest,  most  widely  known  and  be- 
loved man  of  his  day^,  had  served  the  War  Office 
from  early  youth  under  many  chiefs.  His  best 
known  "master"  was  the  Marquis  of  Ripon. 
He  himself  will  best  be  remembered  for  the 
hospitalities  yhich  acquainted  many  of  his 
guests  for  the  first  time  that  nineteenth -century 
London  possessed  public  dining-places,  not  of 
the  most  advertised  kind,  requiring  only  a  little 
encouragement  to  place  them  in  the  same  rank 

368 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and   Statesmen 

for  artistic  cuisine  as  the  choicest  restaurants  of 
the  Palais  Royal  or  the  Boulevards. 

While  these  pages  have  been  in  process  of 
writing  two  typically  Victorian  figures  have  dis- 
appeared. The  first  Marquis  of  Abergavenny 
connected  the  twentieth  century,  not  only  with 
its  predecessor,  but  with  the  fifteenth  ;  Warwick 
the  Kingmaker's  collateral  descendant,  he  per- 
sonified in  these  later  days  something  of  the 
aims,  the  ideas,  and  the  bearing  of  his  mediaeval 
ancestor.  He  also  presented  in  many  respects 
a  close  parallel  to  an  earlier  political  Victorian 
of  noble  birth.  Lord  George  Bentinck.  Like 
Bentinck,  the  Lord  Nevill  of  1868  gave  up  sport 
to  promote  Conservative  reaction.  The  son  of 
an  Evangelical  clergyman,  the  fourth  earl  of  his 
line.  Lord  Abergavenny  always  disapproved  Mr. 
Gladstone  scarcely  less  as  a  ritualist  than  as  a 
Conservative  renegade.  The  Conservative  defeat 
in  the  General  Election  of  November  1868  did 
not  in  the  least  discourage  him.  He  had  failed 
to  whip  up  men  enough  to  avert  it.  The  more 
earnestly,  therefore,  he  took  in  hand  the  work 
of  neutralizing  its  results.  The  first  thing  was 
to  ascertain  the  true  trend  of  political  feeling 
among  the  industrial  and  lower  middle-classes 
of  town  and  country.  As  for  the  latter,  his  vast 
possessions     in     South     England     and     South 

369  A  A 


Great  Victorians 

Wales  had  already  given  him  the  information  he 
wanted . 

In  London,  for  thfe  first  time  in  his  life,  he 
took  innumerable  omnibuses  in  various  directions, 
and  rubbed  shoulders  with  the  man  in  the  street, 
whterever  he  could  find  him,  for  the  purpose  of 
disaovering  his  real  feelings  in  matters  of  Church 
and  State.  At  the  music-halls  visited  by  him 
for  the  same  purpose  he  saw  a  little  broad- 
sheet, the  "  Glowworm,"  uniting  some  features 
of  a  newspaper  with  those  of  a  play-bill.  Why 
should  it  not  become  a  Conservative  organ  with 
slashing  leaders  against  the  enemy4  ?  The  present 
writer,  then  beginning  his  journalistic  course, 
was  one  of  those  personally  acquainted  at  that 
time  with  Lord  Abergavenny's  notion  of  the 
union  between  press  and  party.  These  things 
were  for  the  masses.  For  the  classes  there 
were  the  Carlton,  with  its  younger  namesake. 
In  succession  to  Samuel  Montagu  ('*  the  little 
squire  "),  the  chief  of  the  Kentish  gang  became 
the  good  genius  and  the  universal  Providence  of 
both.  He  cemented  and  broadened  the  alliance 
of  pleasant  fellowship  with  constitutional  ortho- 
doxy. As  a  consequence,  the  two  clubs  were 
largely  instrumental  in  eliminating  from  the  social 
mixture  known  as  '*  the  polite  world  '*  any  Liberal 
leaven.     The  final  triumph  came  at  the  appeal 

370 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and   Statesmen 

to  the  constituencies  in  1874.  The  true 
organizer  of  victory  had  not  been  the  fourteenth 
Earl  of  Derby,  or  even  Benjamin  Disraeli  him- 
self, but  Lord  Abergavenny,  with  his  man  of 
business,  the  Conservative  election  manager, 
Markham  Spofforth,  and  the  two  Carlton  Clubs. 
Lord  Abergavenny  died  on  the  loth  of 
December,  1 9 1  5 .  Just  a  month  later  there  passed 
away  another  expert  in  the  estimate  and  forma- 
tion of  public  opinion,  also  the  pioneer  of  the 
penny  daily  Press.  Edward  Lawson,  the  first 
Lord  Bumham,  inherited  from  his  consummately 
clever  father  an  almost  unerring  insight  into  the 
popular  mind  and  taste,  as  well  as  an  instinctive 
knowledge  of  what  the  new  public  would  read 
and  write.  Thus,  like  his  son,  he  knew  the  sort 
of  '*  copy  "  he  wanted  almost  from  the  hand  in 
which  it  was  written.  No  general  reflections^ 
or  pseu  do -philosophic  platitudes,  plenty  of  good 
arresting  names,  with  three  paragraphs,  neither 
more  nor  less,  for  every  leader.  These  were  old 
Mr.  Levy's  notions  of  an  efl'ective  article.  Next 
year  (19 17)  will  witness  the  centenary  of  a 
magazine,  Blackwood^s,  that,  far  more  than  any 
other  single  cause,  has  influenced  newspaper 
editors  and  their  sheets  from  Delane  and  The 
Times  to  the  Lawsons  and  the  Daily,  Telegraph. 
Delane's    personal    intimate    and    contemporary, 

371 


Great  Victorians 

John  Blackwood;,  the  son  of  William,  *'  Maga's  ** 
founder,  made  the  periodical  the  best  thing  of  its 
kind  ever  known.  '*  I  don't,"  he  said,  *' engage 
the  regular  literary,  man.  He  is  apt  to  be  too 
maniere .  I  look  out  for  a  man  who,  say  a  Dean, 
has  gone  in  for  bee  culture  for  an  article— never 
mind  the  writing,  we  will  see  to  that,  so  long 
as  it  has  facts.  Or  I  come  across  a  cavalry 
officer  who  shoots  big  game  in  the  Carpathians 
and  do  the  same  with  him .  So  I  get  the  freshness 
and  knowledge  which  attract  and  keep  readers." 
Delane  among  journalists,  being  the  earliest  in 
the  field,  first  dealt  with  his  occasional  articles  in 
the  Blackwood  manner.  He  was  followed  and 
soon  surpassed  by  Lord  Bumham,  who  made  the 
Telegraph,  not  only  the  first  news-sheet  of  the 
day,  but  a  trustwoirthy  storehouse  of  topical 
tidings  about  the  persons  and  things  dominating 
at  the  moment  the  popular  mind",  whether  it 
happened  to  be  the  interpretation  of  (Cuneiform 
dharacters,  Dr.  Livingstone's  whereabouts,  or  the 
Marquis  of  Bute's  disposition  of  his  heart.'' 
Always  in  the  van  of  journalistic  enterprise.  Lord 

'  On  the  15th  of  October,  1900,  the  Daily  Telegraph  an- 
nounced that  the  heart  of  the  late  Lord  Bute  was  being  con- 
veyed from  Cumnock  House  to  the  Mount  of  Olives,  after,  as 
it  was  shown  from  several  instances,  a  fashion  once  much 
pb^^rved  \y^  the  Scottish  nobility. 

372 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

Bumham  had  nothing  in  common  with  some 
other  newspaper  peers  of  his  time,  because  he 
held  and  acted  on  the  principle  that  a  newspaper's 
business  was  to  give  the  earliest,  fullest,  most 
exclusive  information  on  all  subjects  in  the  best 
literary,  form,  not  to  influence  markets,  or  to  vent 
personal  spites,  by  publishing  one  day  what  might 
call  for  contradiction  on  the  next,  or  to  influence 
markets  by  the  pure  fabrications  which  are  the 
chosen  opportunity  of  "  bulls  or  bears,"  as  the 
case  may  be. 

Before  finishing  his  course  at  London 
University,  Edward  Lawson  had  come  under  the 
personal  influence  of  a  really  fine  old  English 
gentleman  and  ecclesiastic,  Dr.  Richard  William 
Jelf^  from  1844  Principal  of  King's  College. 
To  know  him  was  itself  a  liberal  education,  and 
through  him  Edward  Lawson  made  many  other 
acquaintances  of  the  same  sort.  The  Dally^ 
Telegraph  had  no  sooner  become  the  earliest  of 
London  journals  sold  for  the  twelfth  part  of  a 
shilling,  than  it  recorded  its  sense  of  Gladstone's 
services  in  making  the  penny  Press  possible  by 
recognizing  him  as  the  greatest  party  leader  and 
most  powerful  instrument  of  legislation  who  had 
appeared  since  Peel.  Lord  Bumham,  however, 
had  always  shown  a  keen  sense  of  literary  form 
as  well  as  of  his  time's  tendencies.     From  its 

373 


Great  Victorians 

beginnings  to  the  present  day  the  articles  in  his 
newspaper  have  never  failed  to  combine  with 
pohtical  shrewdness  the  regard  for  diction  and 
style  that  first,  more  than  half  a  oentiiry  ago, 
gave  its  writers  the  same  sort  of  personal  dis- 
tinction as  was  then  generally  associated  with 
contributorship  to   the    Saturday,   Review. 

What  is  known  in  the  scientific  vocabulary  as 
**  persistence  of  type "  has  shown  itself  very 
noticeably  in  other  branches  of  the  intellectual 
industry  whose  head  Lord  Burnham  became. 
To  take  two  very  different  journalistic  instances. 
The  Spectator  still  combines  the  well-informed 
statesmanship  with  the  strength  of  style  and 
clearness  of  arrangement  with  which  it  was  first 
endowed  by  its  two  nineteenth-century  re-creators, 
Meredith  Townshend  and  R.  H.  Hutton.  Vanity 
Fair  also  still  preserves  in  its  personal 
comments  the  terse  pungency  that  its  founder, 
Mr.  T.  G.  Bowles,  first  imparted  to  it,  and  that 
some  predicted  would  finally  disappear  when  that 
accomplished  master  of  concise  and  vigorous 
phrase  had  withdrawn  his   pen . 

The  first  Lord  Rothschild  died  in  the  early 
sumtner  of  1915;  his  last  public  words  were 
about  the  financial  effects  of  the  war  on  the 
entire  Continent.  The  second  Lord  Rothschild 
took    as    one    of    his    earliest    themes    for    a 

374 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and   Statesmen 

Buckinghamshire  speech  the  consequences  of  the 
war  to  labour.  Whatever  the  future  develop- 
ments of  New  Court,  the  qualities  that  marked 
its  establishment  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  have  never  been  wanting  since. 
Three  years  before  Queen  Victoria's  accession 
the  Rothschild  hospitalities  at  Gunnersbury  be- 
came a  feature  in  London  society.  About  the 
same  time,  too,  Baron  Lionel's  younger  brother, 
Meyer,  began  the  entertainments  at  Mentmore 
which  brought  together  all  that  was  most 
representative  in  the  cosmopolitanism  which  the 
polite  world  of  the  British  Isles  had  already 
begun  to  reflect,  and  whose  influence  upon  it 
is  likely  to  increase  rather  than  diminish. 
Dealing  in  uncertain  values  has  been  described 
as  a  Jewish  instinct^  ^d  as  explaining  the  interest 
of  successive  Rothschild  generations  in  the  Turf. 
But  before  the  colours  of  the  two  brothers, 
Lionel  and  Meyer,  were  known  on  the  racecourse, 
the  men  who  owned  them  were  country  squires 
of  the  first  order.  In  each  case  their  facial 
features  were  those  of  their  race.  Both,  however, 
and  especially  Meyer,  had  all  the  tastes  and  not 
a  little  of  the  manner  of  the  Midland  territorial- 
ists  among  whom  they  passed  so  much  of  their 
life,  and  who  rode  regularly  to  Baron  Meyer's 
stag-hounds  in  the   Aylesbury   district.      What- 

375 


Great  Victorians 

ever  could  improve  the  breed  of  horses  on  their 
Midland  estates  had  the  support  and  encourage- 
ment of  both  brothers.  They  were  landlords 
first  and  sportsmen  afterwards .  In  other  respects 
the  Rothschild  aptitude  and  taste  have  de- 
scended from  the  earlier  to  the  later  members 
of  the  house.  Baron  James  of  Paris  (1792- 
1868)  was  much  in  Disraeli's  mind  when  he 
drew  the  Sidonia  of  **  Coningsby,."  Among  his 
many  clever  sayings  one  is  not  too  familiar  for 
mention.  During  the  disturbances  of  1848  he 
saw  from  his  house  of  business  on  the  Seine  a 
gang  of  noisy  Socialists  making  for  his  front 
door.  Another  moment  and  he  faced  them  on 
the  threshold.  **  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  **  there 
is  no  need  for  violence.  Let  your  leaders  come 
in  and  arrange  the  affair  with  me."  Presently 
the  Baron  opened  the  interview  with  :  ,  *'  You 
desire  an  equal  division  of  property  throughout 
the  whole  of  Franide.  I  agree.  To  forward  your 
views  I  have  prepared  for  your  inspection  a 
statement  of  my  means,  amounting  as  they  do 
to  such  and  such  a  figure.  Divide  that  by  the 
total  population ;  you  will  see  it  exactly  works 
out  at  two  sous  apiece.  Allow  me,  therefore, 
the  pleasure  of  now  handing  over  to  you  your 
share."      In  a   somuewhat   similar  vein  the  late 

376 


Royalties,  Courtiers,  and  Statesmen 

Lord  Rothschild,  hearing  a  gilded  youth's  con- 
temptuous remark  about  a  halfpenny,  said,  **  That 
young  man  does  not  seem  to  know  much  about 
large  transactions." 

The  trio  of  brothers  controlling  New  Court 
up  to  the  fifteenth  year  of  the  present  century 
had  severally  identified  themselves  with  the  chief 
pursuits  and  interests  in  the  England  of  their 
day.  Their  social  influence  and  the  social 
opportunities  for  others  of  their  race  accom- 
plished the  personal  understanding  of  Lord 
Randolph  Churchill  with  Lord  Hartington  with- 
out which  Unionism  could  not  have  existed.  And 
this  though  the  first  Lord  Rothschild,  during 
his  House  of  Commons  days,  passed  for  a 
Liberal,  and  more  than  once  pleasantly  rallied 
the  **  fourth  party's  "  chief  on  some  little  weak- 
ness or  oversight.  That  had  happened  when 
Randolph  Churchill,  referring  to  the  then  Mr. 
Sclater-Booth,  characterized  a  double  surname 
as  a  sure  sign  of  double  mediocrity.  *'  How," 
in  an  audible  aside  murmured  the  great  man 
of  St.  Swithin's  Lane,  •**  about  Spender- 
Churchill  ?  "  There  still  happily  survives  the 
second  of  the  three  brothers,  who  has  done 
more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  individual  towards 
teaching,    guiding,    and    improving   the   modem 

377 


Great  Victorians 

English  taste  in  picture -fancying  and  art- 
collecting.  There  is  also  still  left  the  youngest 
of  Baron  Lionel's  sons,  who,  on  the  Turf  as  on 
his  country  estates,  is  to  the  present  reign  what 
his  father  and  his  uncle  were  to  that  of  Queen 
Victoria. 


378 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  Lady,  285 
Aberdeen,  Lord,  285 
Abergavenny,  Lord,  369-71 
Adelaide,  Queen,  57 
Alava,  General,  152-3 
•^Albert  Edward,   Prince  Consort, 

350-4 
Allen,  Mrs.,  79 
Alvanley,  Lord,  105 
Ambassadors,      appointment     of, 

87-8 
Anson,  Lady,  290 
Apsley  House,  79-81 
Apsley,  Lord,  79 
Arabi,  Pasha,  151 
Arbuthnot,  Mrs.,  82 
Ardagh,  Sir  John,  149 
Argyll,  Duke  of,  247 
Arnaud,  Marshal,  98,  loo 
Asquith,  Mr.,  362 
Authors,  Military,  135-7 

Baillie,  Joanna,  34 
Balfour,  Rt.  Hon.  A.  J.,  367-8 
Barrymore,  Lord,  356 
Battenberg,  Prince  Alexander  of, 

174 
Bazaine,  Marshal,  140-1 
Bismarck,  258,  304-5,  366 
Blackdown  Monument,  30,  58,  73 
Blackwood,  John,  300,  372-3 
Blomfield,  Bishop,  30-1 


Boehm,  Sir  Edgar,  231 
Borthwick,  Sir  Algernon,  184,  185 
Bowles,  T.  Gibson,  184,  374 
Brackenbury,  William,  141 
Brackenbury,  Sir  Henry,  135,  139 ; 

journalistic     methods,     140-1  ; 

Army  reform,  144,  148 
Bright,  John,  261 
British  Embassy  in  Paris,  89 
Browning,  Robert,  313-4,  340 
Bryce,  Lord,  126,  175 
Buckingham,  Duke  of,  161 
Bulwer,  Sir  Henry,  187 
Bulwer-Lytton,  207,  245 
Burdett,  Sir  Francis,  215 
Burnham,  Lord,  371-4 

Caillard,  Sir  Vincent,  149 
Calcraft,  Sir  Henry,  210,  214,  233 
Cambridge,  Duke  of,  360 
Cambronne,  152 
Campbell,    Sir     Colin,    see    Lord 

Clyde 
Canning,  Lord,  121-2,  166-7,  243, 

274 
Canning,    Sir  Stratford  (154-72) ; 

remarkable  forecast  of  present 

war,  159  ;  reminiscences,  163-6  ; 

as  author,  168-70  ;  175,  188,  223 
Cardigan,    Lord,    loo,    loi ;    his 

unpleasant   character,    102;    as 

duellist,  103  ;  rises  by  purchase, 


379 


Index 


103  ;  brutality  of,  103-4,  ^^7  >  ^is 

idea  of  the  British  soldier,  131 

Cardwell,  Lord,  at  the  War  Office, 

134 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  206-10,  280 
Castelar,  Emilio,  348 
Chesterfield,  Lady,  289 
"ChiUian  wallah,"  114 
Churchill,    Lord    Randolph,  212^ 

3^5-7>  377 

Churchill,  Winston,  366 

Cimatelli,  Prince,  46 

Clarendon,  Lord,  186,  220 

Clark,  Sir  Andrew,  285 

Clyde,  Lord,  121-3 

Cobbett,  215-6 

Coleridge,  Sir  George,  136 

Commandership  -  in  -  Chief,  abo- 
lished, 144 

Connaught,  Duke  of,  149 

Constantinople,  British  Embassy 
at,  172 

Cooper,  John,  364 

Cooper,  William,  192 

Corn  Laws,  repeal  of,  211 

Cremorne  Gardens,  147 

Cumberland,  Duke  of,  282 

Daily  News,  the,  345 

Day,  John,  202 

Delane,  261-2,  302 

Denison,  Archdeacon,  48,  49-50 

Denman,  Hon.  G.,  177 

Denmark,  attacked  by  Germany, 

195 
•^Derby,  Lord,  36-7,  160,  162,  216, 

220,  223 
Dickens,  Charles,  287,  338,  342-5 
Dickens,  H.  F.,  K.C.,  344 
Dickens,  Mary  Angela,  344 
v^Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  361-2 


Disraeli,  81,  128,  180-6,231,261-2, 
270, 276-7,  279,  290-2,  298-9,316 
Disraeli,  Mrs.,  119,  130,  291 
Drummond,  Henry,  281 
Duff,  Sir  Mountstuart  Grant,  189 

Eden,  Rev.  R.  J.,  323 
Edinburgh  Reviewers,  the,  31 
Edward  VH,  266,  354-61 
Ellenborough,  Lord,  65-6,  243 
Ellice,  Hon.  Ed.,  *'  Bear,"  22 1-2, 322 
"  Eltchi,"  see  Stratford  Canning 
Esher,  Lord,  365 
Eugenie,  Empress,  257 

"  Fane,  Violet,"  306 

Faraday,  Michael,  323-4 

Fitzclarence,  Lord  Adolphus,  204 

Fitzgerald,  Percy,  346 

Eraser,  Keith,  "  Ouida's  "  hero,  138 

Eraser,  Charles,  138-9 

Eraser,  Sir  William,  137 ;  as  col- 
lector, 138-9 

Frederick  the  Great,  319-20 

Frederick  Wilhelm  I,  320-1 

Freeman,  Archdeacon,  40,  339-40 

French,  Viscount,  139 

Froude,  Archdeacon,  28 

Froude,  J.  A.,  28,  144,  206,  209, 
339;  341 

George  IV,  72,  202 
George  V,  359 

Germany  attacks  Denmark,  195 
1 /Gladstone,  W.  E.,  271,  280-5,  3^5 
Gleig,  Rev.  G.  R.,  70-2,  76-7, 87, 152 
Glenesk,  Lord,  see  Algernon  Borth- 

wick 
Goethe,  319-22 
Goschen,  Lord,  283,  360-2 
Gough,  Lord,  11 2-5 
380 


Ind 


ex 


Grant,  James,  334 
Grant-Duff,  Sir  M.  E.,  238 
7  »X}ranviIle,  Lord,  29,  46,  195,  218, 
256-62 
Greville,  Charles,  233-4,  24S 
Greville,  Lord,  285-6 
Grey,  Earl,  33 
Grove,  Sir  Coleridge,  135 


Haig,  Sir  Douglas,  139 
Haldane,  Lord,  145 
Hamber,  Thomas,  140-1 
Hamilton,  Duke  of,  129-30,  356 
Hansom  cab,  the,  73-4 
Hardinge,  Lord,  112-3,  116-8  ;  his 

character,  119;  death,  120;  131 
Harrison,  Frederic,  357 
Hartington,  Lord,  362-5 
Hayward,    Abraham,     293  -  307  ; 

gives  brief    description  of    his  ^/Labouchere,  Henry,  347-8 


life,  296-8 
"  Henry  of  Exeter,"  see  Phillpotts, 

Bishop 
Herbert,  Dr.  Alan,  173 
Herbert,  St.  Leger,  143 
Herbert,  Sidney,  297-8,  302 
Hertford,  Lord,  129 
Hood,  Tom,  341-2 
Hooker,  Sir  Joseph,  206-7 
Houghton,  Lord, 66, 187,305,314-6 
Howley,  Archbishop,  33,  282 
Hozier,  Henry,  137 
Hozier,  John,  137 

Iddesleigh,   Lord,  see  Northcote, 

Sir  Stafford 
Irving,  Edvi^ard,  30 
Irving,  Henry,  67-8,  315-6 


James,  G.  P.  R,  334 
Jebb,  Sir  R.  C,  354-5 


Jelf,  Dr.,  373 

Jervis,  Miss,  friend  of  Wellington, 

55 
Jowett,  his  ambition,  133  ;  362 

Keate,  Dr.,  310-1 

Kekewich,  Trehawke,  230-40 

Kent,  Duchess  of,  196 

Kidd,  Dr.  Joseph,  292 

Kilve  Court,  32,  55 

Kinglake,  62-3, 95, 97-8, 157, 296-7, 

307,  309-12,  316 
Kingsley,  Charles,  334,  359 
Kitchener,  Lord,  139,  145-6,  153 
Knollys,  Lord,  no 
KnoUys,  Sir  Wm.,  109 
Knowles,  Sir  James,  313 
Kossuth,  222-3 


Lamb,  Lady  Caroline,  84 
Landor,  Walter  Savage,  37-8 
Lane-Poole,  Stanley,  171 
Lansdowne,  Lord,  209 
Lansfeldt,  Countess,  205 
Law,  Sir  Edward,  149 
Lawrence,  G.  A.,  331-7 
Lawrence,  Henry,  11 1-2,  131 
Lawrence,  Lord,  110-2,  131 
Layard,  A.  H.,  285 
Law  Magazine,  the,  301 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  206,  208,  339 
Leech,  John,  328 
Leveson-Gower,  E.  F.,  192,  213 
Liddell,  Dean,  356-8 
Locker,  Frederick,  273 
Loder,  G.,  234 
Lowe,  Robert,  134,  269-79 
Lucknow,  relief  of,  121 
Luttrell,  Col.  Francis,  52 
l|<^Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  323 


38, 


Index 


Lyndhurst,  Lord,  33 
Lyons,  Lord,  256-7,  274 

Macaulay,  Lord,  229 
Mackenzie,  Sir  Morel,  316 
Magee,  Dr.,  282 
Mallet  du  Pan.  128 
Mallet,  Sir  Louis,  128-9,  3^3 
Mallock,  W.  H.,  288 
Malmesbury,  Lord,  223-6,  245 
Manning,     Cardinal,     283,     324 

326 
Martin,  Mrs.  Mountjoy,  263-4 
Massena,  71-2 
Mather  affair,  the,  197-8 
Maurice,  Rev.  F.  D.,  315-6 
Melbourne,  Lord,  196,  220,  306 
Metternich,  201 
Milman,  Sir  Archibald,  317 
Milman,  Dean,  317-9,  323-4 
Milner,  Lord,  362 
Milnes,  Monckton,  see  Lord  Hough- 

ton 
Milnes,  Pemberton,  187 
Moltke,  149,  150 
Montagu,  Wortley,  and  Lady  Mary 

172 
Montalembert,  264 
Montefiore,  Sir  Moses,  266 
Montez,  Lola,  205 
Morier,  Sir  Robert,  174 
Morning  Chronicle,  the,  302 
Mowbray,  Sir  John,  142 
Mudford,  W.  H.,  239 
Murray,  Granville,  16 1-2 

Napier,  Sir  Robert,  276-7 

Napoleon,  77 

Napoleon    III,    213,   257,    263-5 

302-3 
Nelson,  Lord,  71 


Neviil,  Lady  Dorothy,  67-8 
Nore  mutiny,  the,  151-2 
Norman,  Genl.  Sir  Henry,  130 
Norreys,  Lord,  British  Ambassador 
in  1566,  87 
»pNorthcote,  Sir  Stafford,  237-40 
Norton,  Hon.  Mrs.,  306 

O'Brien,  Sir  P.,  203 
O'Connel,  235 

Officer,  new  style  of,  135,  139 
Oliphant,  Lawrence,  288 
Orleanist  Party,  the,  263-6 
Orloff,  Count,  66 
Osborne,  Bernal,  43,  298 
Otway,  Sir  Arthur,  264 
"  Ouida,"  335-7 
Outram,  Sir  James,  121 
vOverstone,  Lord,  316-7 

Pakenham,  Lady  Catherine,  first 
Duchess  of  Wellington,  84 

Palmerston,  Lady,  19 1-5,  303 

Palmerston,  Lord  (177-99)  >  ^^ 
home,  182-4  >  his  friends,  184-5  ; 
school  days,  187  ;  French  dislike 
of,  190-1 ;  puzzles  foreigners  by 
the  truth,  193 ;  his  flirtations, 
194 ;  quarrel  with  Wellington, 
195-6  ;  in  "  Endymion,"  198  ; 
death,  199 ;  201 ;  arbiter  of 
fashion,  202  ;  214-5,  220-2,  259- 
60,303 

Pavilion,  the  Brighton,  231-2 

Pearl,  Cora,  205 
'  Peel,  Sir  Robert  1, 29, 31 ;  death  of, 

204,  210-11 
-•  Peel,  Sir  Robert  II,  234 
-Peel,  Sir  Robert  III,  228-34 

Pender,  Sir  John,  142 

Persigny,  160-1 
382 


Index 


Phillpotts,  Bishop,  "  Henry  of 
Exeter "  (25-50) ;  his  Anglo- 
Catholic  sympathies,  26 ;  ap- 
pearance and  style,  26-7 ;  attacks 
upon  Howley,  33  ;  views  on 
Reformation,  40,  85-6 

Pitt,  15 1-2 

Potter,  Sir  John,  130 

Purchase  of  Commissions,  135 

Quain,  Sir  Richard,  255,  292 

Raglan,  Lord,  94-6 ;  Crimean  com- 
mand, 97  ;  character,  98  ;  loss 
of  arm  at  Waterloo,  99  ;  nearly 
faints  at  Savernake,  100 ;  loi,  102 

Ralli,  Pandeli,  146 

Ranelagh,  Lord,  31 1-2 

Ravensworth  Castle,  53 

Reform  Club,  223 

Regent,  the  Prince,  60 

Reid,  Capt.  Mayne,  335 

Reynolds,  Mrs.,  288 

Rice,  A.  Thorndike,  149-50 

Richmond,  Duchess  of,  her  his- 
toric ball,  59 

Roberts,  Lord,  13 1-3 

Rothschild,  Baron,  207 

Rothschild,    Baron    Lionel,    267, 

375-8 
Rousseau,  J.-J.,  321-2 
Rowcliffe,  famous  heckler,  178-9 
Russell,  Earl,  207-8 
v^Russell,  Lord  John,  205-7  >  attack 

on    Corn    Laws,    212  ;     upsets 

Government,   216 ;    221-2,   245, 

271 
Russia,  affairs  of,  158-60 


Sala,  G.  A.,  335-43 
Salisbury,  Lady,  78 


Salisbury,  Lord,  132,  245 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  34,  53-4,  76 
Schleswig-Holstein,  annexation  of, 

303 

Shaftesbury,  Lady,  194 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  168-9,  3^5 

Sherbrooke,  Lord,  see  Lowe 

Sikh  War,  11 2-3 

Skirrow,  Charles,  203-4 

Sleep,  gift  of  statesmen,  151 

Smedley,  Francis,  337-8 

Smith,  Assheton,  106 

Smith,  Goldwin,  356-7 

Smith-Dorrien,  General,  139 

Soldiers,  private,  changing  views 
of,  13 1-2 

Somerset,  Lord  Fitzroy,  see  Lord 
Raglan 

"  Squarsons  "  of  Devon  and  Somer- 
set, 48 

Standard,  the,  140,  239 

Stanhope,  Lord,  287 

Stanley,  Dean,  359 

Stewart,  Sir  Donald,  124-5  J  ^is 
modesty,   126 ;    character,   127, 

131 
Stokes,  H.  Sewell,  312 
"  Stone,  Harry,"  336-7 
Strachan-Davidson,  Dr.,  331 
Stubbs,  Dr.,  340 
Surtees,  R.  S.,  327-9 
Sussex,  Duke  of,  29 
Sutherland,  Duke  of,  196-7 

Tait,  Archbishop,  270 
Talleyrand,     on     Phillpotts,     43; 

Wellington  on,    76 ;    163,   190, 

197 
Telegraph,  Daily,  the,  325,  371-3 
Temple,  Archbishop,  238,  318 
Tennyson,  229,  312-5 


383 


Index 


Thackeray,  287,  341-2 

Thiers,  188,  219,  265,  299,  300,  301, 

312 
Times,  The,  261-3,  271,  302 
Tiverton,  Palmerston  at,  177 
Torrens,  W.  McCullagh,  203 
Trevelyan,  Sir  Charles,  134,  259 
Trevelyan,  H.,  loi 
Tuohy,  J.  M.,  229 

Urquhart,  David,  189 

Vanderwere,  Sylvain,  197 
Victoria,  Queen,  117,   149,  196-7, 

222-3,  243,  277 
Villiers,  Charles,  207 
Voltaire,  321 

Warburton,  Elliot,  311 

Waterloo,  Battle  of,  58-61  ;  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  on,  82 

Webster,  Lady  Frances,  84 

Welby,  Lord,  308 

Wellesley,  Lord,  65 

Wellington,  ist  Duke  of  (50-90) ; 
ancestry,  50-2 ;  monument  to, 
51  ;  amusements,  55 ;  the  Sage 
of  Europe,  56 ;  scheme  for 
Defence  of  London,  62-3  ;  as 
Premier,  63-4 ;  oratory,  75 ; 
opinion  of  Talleyrand,  76  ;  aris- 
tocratic principles,  81  ;  his  real 
sensibility,  82 ;   as  diplomatist, 


89 ;  buys  the  Embassy  in  Paris ; 
89  ;  q6  ;  his  idea  of  the  British 
soldier,  131;  145;  before  San 
Sebastian,  152-3  ;  his  relations 
with  Palmerston,  195-6 

Wellington,  2nd  Duke  of,  50-1, 
64,  67-70 ;  his  opinion  of  his 
father  and  Nelson,  71  ;  75-6 ; 
145,  232 

W^ells,  H.  G.,  338 

Westminster  School,  95 

Wetherall,  Adjutant-General,  116- 
117 

Wetherell,  Sir  Charles,  28 

White,  Sir  Wm.,  172-5 

Whyte-Melville,  G.  J.,  330 

Wilberforce,  Bishop,  323-6,  359 

Willoughby,  Agnes,  205 

Wilson,  Harriett,  84 

Wilson,  John  ("  Christopher 
North"),  345 

Wolff,  Sir  Henry  Drummond, 
225-6,  264-5,  291 

Wolseley,  Lord;  132-3,  137 ;  not 
Irish,  141 ;  intellectual  powers, 
142-3  ;  reforms,  142  ;  Con- 
tinental opinion  of,  146,  147 ; 
gift  of  sleep,  151  ;  tastes,  152-3 

Wolseley,  Lady,  150 

Wombwell,  Sir  Charles,  loi,  204 

Wood,  Sir  Evelyn,  135 

Yates,  Edmund,  335,  346-7 


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